Chinar felling stirs row in Valley, admin calls it 'pruning'

Months after the Jammu and Kashmir government announced a "Tree Aadhaar" initiative to geo-tag the Chinar trees that have always been associated with the region so as to preserve their numbers, the felling of several of the trees, including some believed to be hundreds of years old, in a public park in south Kashmir's Anantnag district, ostensibly for "pruning", has outraged people across the Union Territory.

- Ashiq Hussain

SRINAGAR:

Photographs and videos showed massive trunks lying on the ground at Rani Bagh in Anantnag and residents have alleged that while the authorities granted limited permission to contractors for pruning dried branches at Rani Bagh, Sarnal and Kadipora, these approvals were used to extract maximum wood by bringing down the whole trees. Chinar wood is prized and sought after for carving and sculpting.

"There has been wanton destruction of Chinar trees in Rani Bagh. It is not pruning but mass killing of trees," said a resident, Mohammad Aslam.

The government's geo-tagging revealed that there were around 28,500 Chinar trees in the region. Referred to as the Oriental Plane (Platanus orientalis), and locally known as Boueen, the tree can grow up to a height of 30 metres and girth of 10 to 15 metres at ground level, taking around 150 years to reach its full size.

Its felling is banned under the Jammu and Kashmir Preservation of Specified Trees Act, 1969, unless permitted by district authorities if there is a threat to life or property.

Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Sirgufwara-Bijbehara in Anantnag, Bashir Ahmad Veeri has taken cognisance of the issue.