Not only that the area of our forests having alarmingly shrunk in Jammu and Kashmir but the process of robbing the existing cover of its green gold by unscrupulous elements – those whose attitude towards nature and preservation thereof is nothing short of being fiendish – still continues though the fact that only tips of the iceberg coming to the fore cannot be overruled. That in other and simple words means that merciless cutting of young lush green trees, here and there continues, of course, never in the absence of connivance of those who are supposed to protect such a nature’s treasure and for which they are paid from out of public money. Any type of alibi like shortage of manpower or the affected area being close to borders hold little water and cannot condone the official lapses in preventing damages caused to our forests like cutting of standing green trees. When natural calamities strike with all ferocity in, around and nearby places on account of ”nakedness” of forests in the form of flash floods and erosion and loss of soil, the sufferers are the people among whom could be those too who did occasionally to forests what is reported to have been recently done with more than 60 lush green trees in forests of Chassana area of Mahore Forest Division in Reasi. It is widely believed that forests act as a strong shield against any imbalance in the environmental phenomenon of rains, storms, winds etc causing wide scale devastation since trees hold water and precious top soil and considerably reduce top soil erosion. Trees being huge oxygen producing natural tireless machines can hardly be ignored being cardinal for our survival. Trees help in reducing the impact of storms and slow down the water run off. That works wonders in two ways – one- that our fast depleting ground water reserves are replenished for our survival and twofloods too are checked. The question is as to why should such acts take place at all and where is the huge watch and ward force appointed for the very purpose to save the remaining forest cover from such mindless elements, who are simply smugglers and thieves, so ignorant towards assessing the huge impact, virtually irreversible one, of felling of trees. It is otherwise a natural, slow, conditional and conducive natural process at work so far as the process of the growing of trees are concerned. The felled trees under reference are the precious Deodar, Koil and “Tung” large and medium sized trees which must have taken more than a decade and a half to grow. Merely by placing the services of the suspected employees under suspension who may have not necessarily connived with the thieves but for their sheer dereliction is not enough, a deterrent punishment to be awarded to such reckless officials shall bring about considerable results. Also as a damage controlling process, no scape goats, however, should be made to divert the public attention from the main problem of not protecting the forests. Such crimes usually take place during the night timeand transportation of the loot too takes place during night or wee hours in the morning for which not only the Police, the Intelligence but even the Forest officials need to be deployed to verify all the antecedents and particulars of such vehicles and the timber carried by them either in bulk or in “instalments” in those vehicles which are carrying material to and fro other than the timber across Jammu and Kashmir.
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