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TIRUVANAMMALAI, INDIA, March 2, 2005: Tiruvanammalai is a bustling city in the state of Tamil Nadu near the south-east tip of India. Dominating the landscape is the sacred mountain Arunachala, which is considered a form of Lord Siva. A temple was built at the base of the mountain more than 1,000 years ago, and over the centuries, millions of pilgrims from throughout India have thronged there. In the late 1980’s the Rainforest Information Centre (RIC) in Lismore received a request for help from an Australian woman, Apeetha Arunagiri, who had been living by the mountain for some 20 years. She explained that, while when the revered Hindu sage Ramana Maharshi had lived at Arunachala in the early years of the 20th century, the mountain was covered with forest, and home to tigers, now nothing remained there but thorns and goats. She asked for help.



RIC volunteer John Button, with Heather Bache, spent most of the next seven years working on this project. They helped Arunagiri form a local non-government organization, the Annamalai Reforestation Society, and began the task of “reweaving” Siva’s tattered robes by planting trees up and down the mountain. Planting trees under these conditions proved incredibly difficult and labor intensive. At one time, there were more than 500 people working there following the monsoon, which is the only time when trees can be planted. It was necessary to build individual rock walls surrounding each seedling. Arunachala has the beginnings of a lush forest, parts of it now 15 years’ old. Several new non-government organizations have sprung up around the mountain, including the Village Forest Plantation, a grassroots effort that stresses worker participation, founded by Arunagiri.

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