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| TDEF
Project The Restoration Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest |
| Coromandel
Coast, South India. |
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following article was written by Isha for Auroville Today. |
It was three years ago that a project began to take
shape [actually the project was first submitted to
the EC in 1997 - Ed], in the midst of much ongoing
Auroville greenwork, to secure major funding for extensive
ecosystem management. A proposal was drafted and submitted
to the EU, with the help of Martin Littlewood (Auroville
International UK) and Greta Jensen (consultant), and
has now been approved, with the funds ready and available
for the beginnings of project implementation. The
total project budget is €560,000 to be invested
over 3 years.
Joss and Anita of Pitchandikulam, Paul, Jaap, Walter,
Glenn, Dirk, Mike, Gemma, now joined by Paula (a Newcomer
to Auroville), will embody our own pool of human resources.
This team from Auroville is enhanced by participation
from FRLHT Bangalore (Foundation for Revitalization
of Local Health Traditions).
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A meeting of the project team.
The project focuses on work in the Auroville
bioregion, specifically to the north of Kaluveli
Tank and its watershed. The objective is to
"bring back forests on forest land",
in Joss' words. In the present environmental
circumstances only very small pockets of natural
TDEF remain in the coastal regions, in patches
of reserved forest, sacred groves, and in hillside
gullies to elevations of about 500 metres. Already
in colonial times, only an estimated 0.1% of
this TDEF ecosystem was in evidence. Joss hopes
that in 50 years it will be possible to recreate
climax tropical dry evergreen forest (TDEF)
previously found predominantly along the coast
of Tamil Nadu. In order to achieve this aim
the project will coordinate and collaborate
closely with Tamil Nadu State Forest Department
officials. Auroville is already quite advanced
in the work of identifying existing remnant
species, with already 30 years of input, the
most detailed in the last 10 years.
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The
Kaluveli Tank Bioregion
on the Coromandel Coast of South India covers
a triangle between Pondicherry, Marakannam and
Tindivanam. The indigenous vegetation of the
area extending in a coastal belt from Ramanathapuram
in the south of Tamil Nadu to Visakhapatanam
in Andra Pradesh, is known as Tropical Dry Evergreen
Forest (TDEF). This forest type is found only
in South India and Sri Lanka and provides a
rare biological richness due to its very high
species abundance but it is now close to extinction
as only 0.01% survives. Only a few isolated
fragments of TDEF exist and many species of
trees, shrubs and lianas are on the verge of
extinction. The bioregion is home to at least
735 vegetative species including 400 plants
that have medicinal properties many of which
have been used for centuries by traditional
practitioners.
A sacred grove.
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European Commission
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