Auroville Botanical Gardens

It Matters is a space for artists and the community to connect, collaborate, and create. Rooted in Auroville’s spirit of exchange, it fosters dialogue and new ideas beyond the local art scene.

Richard Pierre Pérez, who passed away on 17 December, was born in southwestern France and spent much of his life in Paris with his partner Marie Christine.

Martin Zbinden, a resident of New Creation Field, passed away on April 30th due to a heart failure. Martin came to Auroville in 1997 with his family from Switzerland, Nadja, Luca and David.

AVI USA has created a special scholarship fund in collaboration with Auroville’s Botanical Gardens and with sponsorship from HiDesign. The scholarship is created in the memory of David Nagel, originally from Brooklyn, who joined Auroville in 1978.

In the middle of October a 3-day Botanical Gardens of India Networking Workshop was held at the Auroville Botanical Gardens. This event was supported by Botanical Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) with most of their partnered botanical gardens attending the workshop, and over 30 participants from 19 organisations across India attended.

On 18th of August, a small group who had been present at the planting of a Peace Tree in Campinas, Brazil on 25th June 2004, gathered at the Botanical Gardens to plant another Peace Tree in Auroville.

The Auroville Botanical Garden reported that it is now involved in the scientific monitoring of their plantation programmes. Supported by the Ramco group, Ecosia, and the Franklin Foundation through a Botanical Gardens Conservation International project, they have completed the first of this year’s surveys to check the health and growth of its plantations planted in and around the bio region in colleges, schools and government compounds, as well as within the green belt areas of Auroville.

The Auroville Botanical Garden has completed the coastal zone plantation programme of a 50 acre site, recreating a coastal forest with local plants adapted to the sandy and salt conditions.

Deepanam School now has a new Sensory garden for the children to engage with nature. This initiative of Patrizia and Natascha was brought to life with help from the Auroville Botanical Gardens.

One of Auroville’s success stories has been the greening and transformation of severely denuded and eroded land to what is now a diverse, rich and, in pockets, thriving woodlands.

On the 25th of August, Charles Zanon opened his sculpture exhibition ‘Unexpected’, at the Auroville Botanical Gardens, where he showcased a collection of pieces in black granite that he had been working on over the past year.

Quietly, without fanfare or publicity, a beautiful Japanese garden has been created in the grounds of the Botanical Gardens. We spoke to Jyoti Naoki Eri, the designer, and Noel Parent who coordinated the construction work, to find out more.

Auroville Botanical Gardens has released a video on the ecological restoration of the depleted limestone mines of Ramco Cements in Pandalgudi, India.

Last month the dried plant collection of the Auroville Herbarium moved to a new dedicated building in the Botanical Gardens. Funded by SAIIER, inaugurated this March, slowed down a bit by corona, its establishment marks a new phase in the work of preserving and classifying our indigenous flora.

As Auroville battles encroachment, nearby deforestation, water depletion and chemical farming, the green skills developed by the pioneers who brought the barren plateau back to life become ever more important.

Alan Watson Featherstone is a long-term member of the Findhorn community as well as a former Trustee of that community. He is also the Founder of Trees for Life, which has restored 10,000 acres of the Caledonian Forest in the Highlands of Scotland.

On Saturday the 15th of February a gathering will be held at the Botanical Gardens to show the new movie “Ever Slow Green”. Prior to the screening there will be a chance to connect with other people involved in planting trees around the region through an interactive poster session of afforestation projects in South India.

Auroville Botanical Garden’s Educational Programmes are teaching local students the importance of conserving our local biodiversity.

In May this year the Auroville Botanical Gardens published its first annual report highlighting the achievements of the past year and its aspirations for the future.

Auroville Today published an interview with the Facilitators of the Swadharma programme in September 2016. Manas met with the students of the 2016 and 2017 programmes to understand it from the participants’ perspective.

Under this programme, over the past eight years 122 young German volunteers have come to work in Auroville, generally for a period of one year.

On a steamy Saturday afternoon in August, Auroville’s Botanical Gardens threw open its gates to the public to come and celebrate its 15th birthday.

A friend of mine would regularly examine the annual 21st February bonfire to see if the coming year would be a good or a bad one for the Auroville community.