OAiS Lab 04 · Years 4–5
Aravali & Kalpavalli
Restoration as a conversation between communities and land
- Location
- Gurugram, Haryana · Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, India
- Coordinates
- 28.47°, 77.10°
- Field intensive
- Years 4–5
The Aravali Biodiversity Park is a former mine site, replanted. The Kalpavalli Community Conservation Area was created by local communities who put sustainable livelihoods at the centre of how the commons are restored and managed. Both refuse the idea that restoration is a technical operation.
The ground
What this site holds
- 01
ERA India's Ecological Restoration Charter (2022) frames restoration as a conversation between communities and the land rather than a rewilding target.
- 02
Both landscapes are peri-urban: deforested, mined, and now held by the postcolonial communities living with them.
- 03
Dietrich Brandis was Inspector of Forests in India from 1864 to 1883. His archives sit at Kew and in the Indian National Archives, and they set the terms colonial forestry still lends to conservation.
Research questions
- What does community consultation actually consist of, step by step, in a restoration project?
- How do marginalised livelihoods survive a restoration that succeeds?
- How does colonial forestry still shape what counts as a restored landscape?
Planned outputs
- Plant narratives for the Plant Humanities Lab
- Comparative study of ERA's consultation process
- Summer Institute and Spec Life Symposium, McMaster (Year 4)
Cluster leads
Amit Baishya
University of Oklahoma
Arjun Singh
Ecological Restoration Alliance
Jill Didur
Concordia University
Partners on this lab
Ecological Restoration Alliance
India
Ashoka University
Sonipat, India
Toxics Link
India
Dumbarton Oaks
Washington, DC