Trees

In 2016 a German forester, Peter Wohlleben, published a book which describes how trees exchange resources with each other through fungi on their roots.

It’s easy to overlook the bark of a tree – especially here in Auroville, where trees are everywhere and we pass them daily, often without stopping to truly see.

Silence Forest, an 11.2-acre green enclave neighbouring the Vérité community, is little known, even to many Aurovilians. In 2023, five research students from the University of Pondicherry, who were volunteering for the Auroville unit Yuvabe and were mentored by two professors, studied the flora and fauna of the forest and its ability to sequester carbon, conserve water, and increase resilience to adverse climate events.

As a species, we tend to anthropomorphise everything. Kids’ books are full of stories of animals and plants wearing clothes, living in houses etc.

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.

Little is known about those early days before Auroville’s inauguration, when land purchase and the first Auroville developments were started by the Sri Aurobindo Society.