Ousteri lake

Pitchandikulam Forest has issued its 2019-2020 newsletter which includes: reflective musings on the 47-year old history of Pitchandikulam Forest; the story of a monograph on the Owls of South Asia; a report on Pitchandikulam Forest’s nursery which is responsible for the growing of around 20,000 seedlings a year to help re-establish the Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest (TDEF) in Tamil Nadu; a report on the Environmental Leadership and Skill Development Programme for 350 Rural Women; the work of Pitchandikulam Forest in building water retention landscapes and the restoration of the twin lakes of Siruseri Chennai; environmental artwork for Toyota Kirloskar Motors, Bangalore, on a 25-acres ECOZONE; and creating a master plan for an Ecopark/Nature lab and teaching space for practitioners of Restoration Ecology on a piece of land near Ousteri lake.

When the members of the Land Board took office in January 2014 they met with a dire scenario. Funds to purchase lands were in short supply, the sale of outlying lands was blocked, land encroachment was rampant, land grabs and falsifications of land documents by outsiders were discovered, and legal assistance was insufficiently available.