EVERGREEN NURSERY

History and today’s organisation.

The Northern Forests of Auroville are a discontinuous band of forests between 40 and 5 years old. Their northernmost front is constituted of fragmented plots of Auroville land that we are transitioning from cultivated cashew fields to forest. Our objective is to establish a closed evergreen canopy over the land. In the centre of this area is a collectively managed forest sanctuary and wildlife breeding ground. In order to create this evergreen canopy, a nursery was created about a year ago. It therefore specializes in evergreen species and only a fraction of the trees grown are pioneers. These are deciduous emergents of the evergreen forest. The evergreens grown in the nursery fall into two categories: structural evergreen climax and proto-climax trees found in the region in temple groves and Reserve Forests. These species are for the most part established in the older  Auroville forest stands and are those which have the ability to coppice. The second category of trees are new introductions. These are evergreens which are presently only surviving in hills and on the lower slopes of mountains below the coffee belt, between about 700 and 1300m above mean sea level.

The nursery started in 2018 to supply the northern forests of Auroville with evergreen species. Area of activities include seed collection, germination, sowing, bagging etc.

Vision and Missions

Supply the NFA collective sanctuary and the other northern forests with large numbers of evergreen saplings in order to quickly establish a closed evergreen canopy