It was probably around thirty years ago that I went to a basement apartment near Harvard Square for a presentation by two people visiting from Auroville, a religious community and ecovillage near Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, India.  The man and woman talked about their work planting trees and reforesting the area.  They showed slides, focusing on a method they derived by trial and error to provide water for their saplings by molding bunds, small catchment basins just downslope from the tree to gather rainwater so that it could soak down into the roots.  They talked about following erosion gullies upslope to where they began and using stones and pebbles to stop the erosion at the source.  They said that after more than a decade of work, the weather had noticeably changed in the region and the seasonal rains had returned.

How did we get into this mess?

A little bit at a time and because everybody does it.

We get out of it just

that same way.

4/23/01  John Berry, in conversation