Community at the Sanctuary

The Sanctuary is, in every sense, a community of humans and nonhumans which has grown slowly over 40 years (more if you count the ages of some of the trees); a community at the edge of an endangered forest in an endangered biome in the Western Ghat mountains in India.

By community is meant simply this: organisms voluntarily sharing a space together, dependant on each other, each one making it possible for another to live a life-in-community: all together dependent upon and informing the surrounding earthly terrain, including the winds and waters that flow through this terrain.

Depending on your perspective and interest, this community could appear to you as any of these: a plant sanctuary or a half-way home for rare and threatened plants; an animal sanctuary; a botanic garden (not the same as a plant sanctuary); a human sanctuary; a place of retreat and learning, a wonderland of adventures, meetings and mysteries; an infant eco-village. The Sanctuary, to some, is also an elaborate inter-species communal alliance in response to eco-cide and hubris.

Photo: Peter Oppenheimer

The Sanctuary is:

GBS is all this and more. It all depends on who you are, and your perspective.