Sadhana Forest

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Sadhana Forest is a wasteland reclamation and sustainable living project located in Auroville, South India. Our mission is to live with ecological consciousness and good health while revitalizing and reforesting barren wasteland, growing our own food organically, as well as promoting environmental education.

We began our wasteland reclamation and sustainable living work on the outskirts of Auroville in Tamil Nadu, India on December 19th 2003. 70 acres of severely eroded land are being dramatically transformed. The underground water table is rising, and a growing number of people are being introduced to sustainable living while the community invests its energy and resources in making this land a vibrant indigenous forest.

We provide free accommodation for 600 residential volunteers, interns and students every year and give free one-day tours and explanations of the project to more than 2,000 people per year.

Our main project is the reforestation of 70 acres of severely eroded land.
We are working to re-create the Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest indigenous to our area. This forest type is found only in Southern India and Sri Lanka and provides a rare biological richness due to its very high species abundance (over 1000 species of trees, shrubbery, and liana). The Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest is now close to total extinction as only 0.01% survives. This is a last moment effort to keep this very rich and beautiful Forest on earth.

The other main action areas of Sadhana Forest are Vegan living, water conservation and water table recharge, environmental education through the unschooling philosophy, energy from solar and human power, local and alternative building methods and food production with permaculture design methods.

We welcome volunteers, students and interns throughout the year. We are interested in having volunteers for a period of three months or longer so that volunteers will become an integral part of the operations here and assume more responsibilities while they are with us in India. Shorter stays are also possible, with a minimum two weeks. Families are most welcome!!!

For other net participants we can offer an expert guidance through trained staff, deliver a lecture and establish new contacts in the field of our work.