Small Forests that Citizens can grow: Part-1

The graphic above cheered me up. That there’s been an increase in forest cover is good news indeed.  6,600 sqKm increase in one year is not small either!

Then I did a double take and pondered a while. And that led me to see forestry entirely differently.

Small Forests that Citizens can grow: Part-2

In my previous post, I had mentioned the minimum viable size for a forest is 1,400 sqFeet [130 sqMtr]. While a large area is indeed welcome, lack of acre sized lots need not deter an individual from creating his own little forest. That approach to foresting is enabled by the work of Akira Miyawaki, a legend who revolutionised our thinking about what forests are and how to rapidly grow them. Do go over here and patiently read through his ideas and successes.
Based on that and my own little proof-of-principle experiment, I am confident citizen level action can be more successful than government or large groups' initiatives..
Let me now make a series of lists to convey my dream quickly

Future of pointReturn - Part 2: Thus far

pointReturn is located about 100 kM south of Chennai, in south India. The Google Earth co-ords are  12°25'57.88”N,  79°55'27.74”E

It is is 20 acres in all. The land slopes 6m over a half kM run West to East. At the western end is a chain of small hills. 

The land had never been farmed, attracted no buyer and had been rutted by vehicular traffic between two villages east and west. Water run off and soil erosion ensued. It was an orphaned, abused, abandoned piece of India, when I decided to adopt it.

Over the last decade, my work has mostly been to create water harvesting bodies. I dug a couple of ponds and a canal. But what I believe turned the land around is a set of six swales, laid out about 150’ apart, down the slope. I have written about swales elsewhere and posted a slideshow as well.

I have not availed of grid power. All the water until 2 years ago, was lifted using a windmill. Now there is also a 1HP solar pump installed in a small well. Given the constraint on water, pointReturn’s revival has been of great satisfaction to me. 

When I was wondering if the restoration was in fact happening, I realised I was blind to the evidence of success staring in my face. There was a lesson to learn: I was being to blind to the gifts presented all around me. 

Here’s link to another slideshow which summarises the work done so far.

What is happening now is a phased effort to turn about 10 acres into a wooded walking trail. How I came to decide on that as an assured future for this restored land is told here.

I am aware I have littered this post with too many links, but it seemed the best way to quickly compress my long story. 

That is the story so far. I am now in an anxious phase, wondering how to ensure the work goes on and the land is cared for after my time. I shall share my hopes and some ideas on it in my next post.

Future of pointReturn - Part 1: The desire

The land regeneration adventure at pointReturn began 12 years ago. I was 64 then. It’s time now to plan for its future without me.

Work of the last decade has reached one milestone; a few more lie ahead. 

In a perfect world Nature needs no nannies. But given our times some assistance is required. Hence the need for regeneration work at all. 

Strictly speaking, no one regenerates wasteland. Nature does it. All one does is ring-fence the area so that it can lavish its resources of seeds, birds and moisture to begin the work. Just that protection enables nature’s work to be done a lot quicker.

The fulfilment in seeing Nature claiming a space and reigning over it is what urges us to help its work whenever,wherever we can.

There is a need for unhindered spaces for other living forms, whose importance to man, he may not entirely be aware of. That he finds such spaces striking a deep chord in him is confirmation of their essential need for him. 

Such spaces are diminishing. 

I would like pointReturn to become such a space.

To be honest, when I began, my goal was an economically sustainable food and energy growing community of 10 people, all of whom would however be committed naturalists. That experiment ended four years ago. I considered bailing out. A bit later though, I decided to mark time to discover another purpose. And I am glad to say, I did find one. I have told that story elsewhere:https://apersonalindia.blogspot.in/2018/01/when-lost-find-new-start.html

Each passing day reaffirms my conviction that a living, throbbing woods is what pointReturn should become.

I am keen -paranoid, even- that it should not fall into some commercial hands, as it easily could. I do not want it to become an entertainment centre for man; not a place for weddings, parties, picnics and fairs. I want it to be a sacred grove of permanence where trees, birds and small game shall have the first claim, with man soft-stepping on its walking trails as a mere visitor. I would like it to be a space which curious scholars and enthusiasts study and discover its myriad mysteries in. I’d like it to pull and hold volunteers who will care and defend it. And all the while, Nature will go on doing what it always does: nourish the planet

How easy is that to realise?

When I list the threats to the idea, I find myself thinking up complex arrangements rooted in distrust. And yet, I must have one that secures the property from prowlers. My preoccupation now is to develop a structure that is not a complex maze and yet be a secure workable one.

I am toying with a number of ideas but must soon incorporate them in legal terms. So, this post and others to follow, are to seek your reactions, to point me to leads that’d help me as templates or people who you may know be of assistance. Out of these exchanges might even come volunteers who can help manage pointReturn. Not having a conventional successor has this advantage for me: trust myself unto the world to inherit the space.

My next post in this series will give you the basics on pointReturn as a physical entity.

Permaculture: an interlude

[Repost of an article I wrote in Nov., 2008]
Bill Mollison, 80 years old, toddled up to the blackboard and wrote "You are so lucky. Three teachers!". Then swinging around, he stood, cuddly as a lad, cocking an eyebrow up and smiling the friendliest conspiratorial smile you ever saw.
That kick started the Permaculture Design Course [PDC] in Melbourne, Australia on September 22, 2008.

When lost, find a new start

"Everybody sets out to do something, and everybody does something, but no one does what he sets out to do." - George A. Moore

The woods-to-be, soon after planting out on Nov 15, 2017

When I began the land restoration work at pointReturn in 2006, I had dreamt big. Big dreams get us started, but it’s hard to tell where they might take us.

I dreamt the derelict land would become rich in water and topsoil, that it’d  provide food, water, shelter and energy for 40 people; that it’d be run by volunteers who’d live on it and protect its newly created water bodies and fields; that they would live off the produce and lead frugal lives; that it’d attract and motivate back-to-the-landers.

Well, ten years down the line and pushing 75 now, I find it has evolved in a way all its own.

Blind to wealth

In 2014, after a two year absence, I returned to actively manage pointReturn. One of the reasons was that the land needed immediate drastic action.

During a visit prior to my return I had stood and stared at the fields overgrown with brush and tall grass.In several places, I had to part my way to enter the tangle. They rose close to my arm pits. It was impossibly thick and prickly in places to even wade through.

I went weak with despair. What has gone wrong? And, why?
That evening -after I had ‘done’ reacting in panic and calmed down- I realised they were wrong questions to be asking.
I was in fact, staring at wealth sent my way. The wealth was biomass to be used to add organic matter to crumbly soil. My task was to harvest and incorporate it into soil.
‘How’ was the correct question to ask.

A windmill is my Murti

[The following article has been republished by IndiaFacts.org]

I have heard it said that if you truly seek an answer to a spiritual question, you’ll invariably come by a Guru’s wisdom. 
This is my story of such a discovery.
For forty of my 75 years, my work has had something or the other to do with the earth, plants and water. I have spent most of that time with rural people who work with their hands. 

Almost daily, I was witness to their Hinduism in actual practice- spontaneously, consistently and without question. Things were done instinctively.

A workman would touch the soil before starting work. They  would start the day after seeking to be blessed by their work tools, be it a trowel, a mattock or a saw. Many would take the first fistful of food to their bowed head before eating. Work on a area was always begun at the North East corner. A peepul tree was never to be cut. Most knew when it was likely to rain, what crop suited the time, when the moon began to wax and when to wane. It was best to sow seeds at amavasya and soon after. Steps in a stairs and pillars in a verandah had to be odd numbered. Most everyone knew basic arrangement of living spaces in a house. And of course, plenty of agreement on what was good to eat, for whom and when.

These and more, I could narrate here but that’s not the point of this article.

What struck me was a great rootedness in the very soil and a connectedness with the space around us. “Religion’ was not something apart that  you go somewhere to practice. It emerged in everything they did. Every practice seemed to be based on a great conviction.

No verse from any book gave them instructions. Their response seemed driven by an unspoken fundamental belief. 

What was it?

Food growing at pointReturn

On a land where food had never been grown, restoration efforts are beginning to yield some results. Beginning 2010 some modest quantity has been grown, on small patches.

Water bodies at pointReturn

The key to the restoration work at pointReturn, that began in 2006 has been rain water harvesting [RWH]. Between 2007 and 2012 I undertook to create various RWH bodies- these were canals, swales [also known as Continuous Contour Trenches] and ponds.
Below is a table of all of them. Click on image for an enlarged view.

A school opens at pointReturn

The entire 17 acre project known as pointReturn was meant to be given away to institutions that add value to India. Long time followers may recall, the project was to be driven by a small community of young people who live and work on the land and on ideas they believe as being suited to advance India's prosperity. Education, was one of them. An education grounded in India’s traditional  values was to be offered at pR.

But that’s not the way things unfolded.

pointReturn - quick history

The following YouTube video uses a series of GoogleEarth images of the pointReturn site to tell the restoration story. The earliest image is from 2001- a good five years before I bought the land to begin my adventure of turning it productive. It shows a land used for brick-kilns and as a vehicular thoroughfare between two villages in the east and west.
The land slopes 6 metres from west to east, over a 500m run. During rain events water used to roar down the slope gouging a path for itself and carrying away all top soil.The land was bereft of top-soil, vegetation or a source of water, like a well or a pond. The soil had been rendered gravely.No food had ever been grown there.
Beginning 2006, restoration began by means of extensive rain water harvesting, recycling of biomass and planting trees. Some food growing began in 2010.
Watch the video for more on the pointReturn Story
View the video in full screen mode to be able to read the notes clearly. Use the space-bar to pause and resume the video.

Falling in love with swales

“A swale is a water harvesting trench, dug usually on a contour line.” That’s the technical definition- it tells you as much as a definition of the horse as a four legged animal does about that splendid beast. Between the time I read of swales in Bill Mollison’s Permaculture Designer’s Manual in 2006 and actually decided to embrace them as the central feature of pointReturn, it was a good three years. It was even a whole year after I did the Permaculture Design Course.
I have put together a slideshow on the swale work done at pointReturn. A link to the slideshow appears at the end of this article as it is best viewed after reading this.
That I had fallen in love with the word ‘swale’ helped. It kept buzzing at the back of my mind like some tempting movie I must see someday. ‘Swale’ is a decidedly lovelier sounding word than Continuous Contour Trench- or its abominable abbreviation, CCT, the usual tag for a swale in India.