Nature Restoration Led by Sustainable Living Communities in Bhopal

First look of the Bhopal Collective landscape

All of our collectives stem from one goal, which is to enable communities to live sustainable lives, and that fervour translates to nature restoration, ecological restoration and designing the landscape to become safe spaces for both man and nature. And through the years, our labour of love has found its way to different locations across India giving birth to 5 collectives in Hyderabad, Mumbai and Coorg. 

Each collective came with different sets of trial and error, challenges and transformations, which ultimately led us to learnings greater than our understanding — At the brink of adversities, we saw lessons to be learned and with teachings from the different landscapes of our collectives, we find ourselves in the wilderness yet again, to traverse, to discover and to explore the landscapes in the Heart of India – Our 109-acre Bhopal Collective.

The Bhopal Collective 

Pre-existing trails in the landscape of the Bhopal Collective

Sustainability finds many forms of practice, and they range from small actions to big ones like ours. So when we say we want to enable communities to live sustainable lives, we mean 100+ acres of land with permaculture at the centre of all functioning. The Bhopal collective, as such, is our 3rd Farming Collective that best taps into the natural capitals of air, water, land, and plants of the landscape. Why a farming collective,, you may ask – because urbanisation & expansion of farming activities are the leading causes of forest depletion. But we need both forests and farming to survive. With a tribe of like-minded people at Beforest, we yearn to build conscious collectives to address the larger goals of restoration and conservation of landscapes through farming.

The goal is to find the most efficient ways to utilise resources and secure the basic living needs for the community that calls it home, in short, land, water and power security for all.

Where Does Building the Collective Begin?

Natural water bodies of the landscape of the Bhopal Collective

Like any collective, the Bhopal collective too will begin with land restoration, which entails deep diving into the history of the land, checking the patterns of the land used over the years and cleansing the soil of any pesticides or chemical traces, ensuring a clean slate to start over while keeping the cultural identity of the land intact, understanding what is outside can impact the inside and what is inside the collective can affect what surrounds the collective.

What will follow is a list of surveys, from biodiversity, topographical, hydrological, and aerial surveys to an array of studies to understand what the land is capable of and how we can fit in as part of it in the greater scheme of things.

Permaculture Farming in the Heart of India 

Jujube trees at the Bhopal Collective

The Bhopal collective, too, will be driven by Permaculture, which is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems with diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It adheres to the 3 ethics of – “people care, earth care & fair share”. 

The practice involves ecosystem-centric activities like restoring the natural nutrient balance of land, ensuring healthy water levels and soil health, generating abundance and diversity of food, and accounting for all inputs and outputs to build a holistic, sustainable lifestyle.

Calling Forest-Loving Souls to Build a Sustainable Community 

Wilderness zones in the landscape of the Bhopal Collective

As Beforest continues ecosystem restorations and begins a new chapter in Bhopal, we are driven to inspire more people who are keen on sustainable farming and seek to grow a food forest to join the movement of eco-conscious individuals coming together to form a community- to pool in their resources, knowledge and skills for the holistic development of the landscape to make it resilient to climate and market change. If sustainability is a verb for you and you aspire to be part of sustainable living communities, Beforest is the catalyst for you. 

As the seed community is being formed, we invite you to come explore our Bhopal Collective, there is something for everyone here.