Acres for Auroville (A4A)

Acres for Auroville reminded purchase lands for Auroville. Its work has resulted in 187.14 missing Master Plan acres to be added to 41 Auroville communities, farms, forest areas, and nature preserves.

That’s me - the baby sitting on the edge of the windowsill – one of the first children to live in Auroville. I was born in Kampala, Uganda, and I came to Pondicherry with Shyama, my mother, and my two brothers in 1965 when I was one-and-a-half years old.

In February 2021, Auroville purchased 19.09 acres in five Greenbelt areas, all funded by donations raised through Acres for Auroville. A major piece acquired is around the Irumbai lake (pictured)

Auroville has purchased 13.72 new acres of fertile agricultural land near Irumbai Lake across from the Irumbai Temple. This vital addition to Auroville’s land area was funded by private donations to Acres for Auroville.

Since the start of the seventh year of Acres for Auroville, thanks to donors to Acres for Auroville and Lands For Auroville United, six new Greenbelt plots have been purchased, adding 6.47 acres of rich agricultural land and helping consolidate other land.

This month, the 5th Art for Land exhibition opened at Unity Pavilion, in collaboration with Auroville Art Service and Acres for Auroville. Until 21 February, a collection of sculptures, paintings, ceramics, photographs, and more offered by Auroville’s artists and well-wishers will be displayed for the community.

“The procurement of land for Auroville is the most urgent priority in order to ensure the future of the project in its original spirit,” says Sauro Mezzetti, member of the Working Committee and former overall coordinator of L’Avenir d’Auroville.

Throughout February, the walls and spaces of the Unity Pavilion were filled with over 300 artworks donated by over 70 artists from Auroville and around the world.

When the members of the Land Board took office in January 2014 they met with a dire scenario. Funds to purchase lands were in short supply, the sale of outlying lands was blocked, land encroachment was rampant, land grabs and falsifications of land documents by outsiders were discovered, and legal assistance was insufficiently available.

August 15th – Sri Aurobindo’s birthday – was the occasion for the inauguration of new phases in Auroville’s three land fundraising campaigns: Phase 3 of the Acres for Auroville land campaign; the second year of the Green Acres campaign, and the second phase of the Art for Land action.

On February 7th, the ‘Landing Auroville Celebration’ held at the Unity Pavillion was an encouraging success. Organised by the joint land fundraising teams of Acres for Auroville, GreenAcres and LFAU, the event’s central message was the sacredness of the land, and the need for an intense collective effort to acquire land in Auroville’s Master Plan area now.

We are stardust We are golden And we’ve got to get ourselves Back to the garden. (Lyrics from “Woodstock” by Joni Mitchell)

The Acres for Auroville Phase Two and GreenAcres campaigns were launched on August 15th.

The goal of Acres for Auroville is to secure, consolidate, and protect the land in the Matrimandir and International Zone areas. The campaign is a joint effort of Auroville International France with Lands for Auroville Unified (LFAU) in coordination with the LCC (Land Coordination Committee).