“I believe that nature always grows in a barter system. If you do something for nature, nature gives you back something equivalent to it. We are creating forests keeping this rule in mind. The collaboration of many good people makes this possible. Forests are a variety of positive, active and living things that children need to learn on their own. The forest will teach them what they need to learn. Forests are the necessary school for the world to come.
For instance, my daughter didn’t know how to recognise any letter of the alphabet until she went one day with me to the homoeopathic doctor. In that clinic, you have to sign your name after you get the treatment. The doctor asked her to sign, so she said, “I don’t know how to read and write.” I told her I would sign for her this time, and I took the pen.
“No, but I want to sign my name,” she said.
I said okay, so in front of the doctor, I was teaching her letter by letter of her name. Her name is pretty long – it’s Osher Shanti Rozin – so it includes like half of the alphabet. By the time we went out of the doctor’s office, she knew half of the alphabet now without any effort, without any tension… And it made me think about myself, you know, spending the first grade; it took me six months to study half of the alphabet, and for her, it took less than five minutes just because she was ready for it. – Aviram Rozin (Founder and International Director of Sadhana Forest)
Today, Sadhana Forests is a testimony to environmental renaissance and self-sufficiency studies. In 2003, Aviram Rozin and Yorrite from Israel came to India and bought nearly 70 acres of barren land on the outskirts of Auroville in Pondicherry. They made a great effort to restore it by natural methods and convert it into a forest.
In the first phase, the team planted more than 29,000 evergreen plants, creepers and trees, including more than 160 different native plant species, in the tropical dry land and carefully maintained them. Thereafter, trenches more than 20 kilometres long were dug and eight dams were built there. The system would store more than 50,000 cubic meters of rainwater each time. As a result, the groundwater level started rising in the area.
From an average depth of 26 feet in 2003 [before the Sadhana forest was launched], the water level has changed to an average of 6 feet in the four years since they started. Today, the ‘Sadhana Forest’ is now an eco-habitat with 18000 native trees. Every year, more than 1,000 volunteers enter the forest and return. Sadhana is one of the largest forests in India created by human cooperation. Today, the forest is alive and well as a global training ground for self-reliance and natural lifestyles.
Sadhana forests have long been instrumental in channelizing the tremendous potential of human unity and inculcating their main goals of self-reliance, environmental transformation, restoration of wastelands, creation of good food and awareness dialogues among the people. The team focuses on creating ‘evergreen forests’ in various tropical wastelands around the world.
Apart from India (Pondicherry), Sadhana Forest Group has also created forests in the Latin American country of Haiti and Kenya. In 2010, the Sadhana Vana Committee was selected for third place by the ‘Water and Food Award’ as an international recognition for its environmental and humanitarian work.
On 05.05.20, Aviram Rozin, one of the pioneers of Sadhana Forest, participated in the Cuckoo Live Conversation and spoke about his experiences and the positive changes it has made. It was an opportunity to hear the stories and experiences of Sadhana Vanam, which has evolved as a testimony to a series of transformations in forestry, water conservation management, food-shelter self-sufficiency, seed banking, self-reliance and wildlife. This conversation should be heard by all friends who focus on an alternative life.