{"id":2415,"date":"2021-01-11T10:38:55","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T06:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adventure.auroville.com\/?p=2415"},"modified":"2022-05-06T13:15:10","modified_gmt":"2022-05-06T08:45:10","slug":"taking-care-of-aurovilles-gentle-giants-jonas-from-treecare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adventure.auroville.com\/index.php\/2021\/01\/11\/taking-care-of-aurovilles-gentle-giants-jonas-from-treecare\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking Care of Auroville’s Gentle Giants: Jonas from TreeCare"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you\u2019ve taken a stroll around Auroville, you know that greenery is a major component of the landscape. Bushes, shrubs, plants and of course the mighty and majestic trees, in all their types, shapes and colours. The forest has grown marvelously in the past 50 years, but when trees grow they also pose a risk to electrical lines, roofs and roads. Tree Care is the 9 member team responsible for all the tree maintenance work in Auroville. We spoke to Jonas, who joined Tree Care in 2014, to give us an insight into the world of taking care of these gentle giants.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Offering a New Service in India<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Tree Care was started by Juan, an Aurovilian who had learned Arboriculture in Spain. Arboriculture is the cultivation, maintenance and study of trees and other woody plants. Over the years, team members joined and left until Tree Care was left in the hands of two Auroville youth: Anadi and Julian. When Jonas came back to Auroville in 2014, after receiving a degree in Economics, he was unsure about what he wanted to do. \u201cI didn\u2019t really have a plan, I just knew I wanted to come back to Auroville. When I got back, about two weeks later, Anadi and Julian asked if I wanted to join Tree Care. At first I was unsure, I wondered if my degree was related to the work. But then we started discussing how we could use my expertise and run Tree Care like a business, to expand it around the country, and offer a service that is not yet available in India. That got me excited, and I enjoyed the physical work of the climbing as well, so it fell into place from there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does the work entail? Jonas explains: \u201cTree work as a broad term covers any work done on trees. Tree removal, for example, is done if a tree dies because of old age or infestation. We do this if it\u2019s causing risk because it\u2019s either over a road or next to a roof. How we decide this is by doing tree risk assessment. We evaluate how much of a risk is present and how healthy the tree is. Then we make a decision. Is it worth it to help it grow stronger and keep it in the same place? Or is it a problematic tree and the smarter thing is to remove it, and plant a new tree?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another thing we do is transplantation. We shift trees, so if you have a beautiful tree that you don\u2019t want to cut down but you\u2019re planning an extension of the house or god knows what, then many trees like that can be relocated. So when we talk about tree work it\u2019s anything tree related, even a consultation. The work is quite diverse.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n