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7th Samanvaya Freedom Lecture

http://www.samanvaya.com/main/fl-7th-2009.html

CIOSA

And

Samanvaya

Invite you to the

Seventh Samanvaya Freedom Lecture
‘Gardening for Freedom’

By

Joss Brooks
Director, Pitchandikulam Bio-Resource Centre, Auroville


Prof. G. Dattatri
Former Chief Urban Planner, CMDA will preside and introduce the speaker


Venue: Vidya Sagar, Thomas Rajan Auditorium, No 1 Ranjit Road, Kotturpuram, Chennai- 85

Date: 22nd August 2009, Saturday


Time: 5:30 – 7:30p.m.
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About the Speaker
Joss Brooks, an Australian, came to India searching for sustainable ways of living in 1968. A dreamer and explorer then, searching for sustainable ways of living in harmony with nature, after 40 years of determination, hard work and actualising those dreams, he still remains a dreamer. One of the earliest settlers of Auroville, Tamil Nadu, he also worked to reforest and regenerate the barren and dying land. Today, Auroville is a place of demonstration and research in land regeneration, organic farming, use of renewable energy and sustainable technologies.

Pitchandikulam, the community settlement in Auroville that Joss, wife Anita and their team started, began like Auroville with dry land and lots of faith. Today, it is a 60-acre tropical dry evergreen forest and is known across India as an educational demonstration centre for eco-restoration, regeneration and reforestation, that houses a seed store, traditional medicinal plants gardens, orchards, dairy, solar electricity, water pumping windmills, bio-gas for cooking, and well over 250 species of trees and 135 species of birds. By the 1990s the Pitchandikulam Bio-Resource Centre (PBRC) had become a valuable training centre, able to provide practical demonstrations of seed collection, planting, agro-forestry, erosion control and watershed management. Their fundamental programmes over the years include theNadukuppam Environmental Education Centre (NEEC), a comprehensive community development endeavour pivoting around awareness and conservation of the community’s bioresources.

Currently, Joss and his team are working on a dream for Chennai - the very ambitious and significant Government of Tamil Nadu project, ecological restoration of the Adyar Poonga Creek and Estuary, to restore the biodiversity along the Adyar estuary. The poonga is about 58 acres of land and it would become one of the primary lungs of Chennai city.


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