by Babra Wani
SRINAGAR: This World Environment Day, the hills of Jammu’s Chenab Valley offered an unusual but powerful story of environmental commitment, led not by a government initiative, but by one retired professor with a lifelong reverence for trees, especially the majestic Chinar.
Prof Syed Zaheer Abbas Hashmi, a former principal of Government Degree College Doda and former Controller of Examinations at Cluster University Jammu, has spent the last 16 years planting thousands of trees across the region. But his most remarkable contribution lies in his painstaking effort to revive the Chinar, a tree deeply embedded in Kashmir’s cultural and ecological identity, now under threat from unchecked urbanisation.
Once found abundantly across the Valley, the Chinar has been fading fast. Construction projects, road-widening, and environmental neglect have led to their widespread decline. So serious is the crisis that the Jammu and Kashmir Forest Research Institute (JKFRI) this week launched the ‘Digital Tree Aadhar’ initiative—assigning geo-tagged barcodes to thousands of Chinars to monitor their health and survival. Each tree now carries a unique number and barcode. For example, the iconic Chinar at Lal Chowk is tagged CG-JK010088, allowing tourists and conservationists alike to track its age, location, and condition.
But long before this official effort took shape, Prof Hashmi had already taken it upon himself to give the Chinar a second life, far from its native soil. Since 2008, he has planted between 3,000 to 3,500 Chinar saplings across the Chenab Valley, including Doda, Kishtwar, Bhaderwah, Bhalessa and Thathri. Carrying the delicate saplings himself from various parts of Kashmir, Hashmi planted them in difficult terrain where survival was uncertain. “The Chinar is not native to this region, and has a survival rate of only about 20 per cent,” he explains. “But with care, over a thousand of them have now turned into full-grown trees.”
His green trail includes a five-kilometre stretch from his home village Ghat to Doda town, and a 30-kilometre patch between Pul Doda and Bhaderwah, each now marked by towering Chinars. College campuses, roadside embankments, and degraded slopes have all benefited from his silent mission, often sustained entirely by his savings. Without institutional support, Hashmi buys, transports, plants, fences, and waters each sapling—sometimes carrying gallons of water in his vehicle during dry spells to keep the trees alive.
During his time at Government Degree College Bhaderwah, he also led efforts to green barren land with Deodar and other native species. “It wasn’t about beautification,” he says. “It was about restoring the soul of this land.”
Interestingly, Prof Hashmi’s mission echoes a lesser-known official effort. During his tenure as Jammu and Kashmir’s Forest Minister, Choudhary Lal Singh had also transported thousands of Chinar saplings to the Jammu region, a move that resulted in some success. Several of those trees, planted under departmental oversight, have now matured, adding another chapter to the Chinar’s slow spread into lower-altitude landscapes.
But unlike that project, Hashmi’s work is entirely personal—and, at times, painful. Just a day before this Environment Day, one of his full-grown Chinars near Doda town was burnt to ashes after a load carrier dumped garbage near its roots and set it alight. “I’ve filed a complaint and the driver is identified,” Hashmi says, “but I don’t expect much to come of it.”
Despite the setbacks, he remains undeterred. “A Chinar is not just a tree,” he says. “It’s memory, shade, culture, resistance. It is the Valley itself.” And now, thanks to his labour, a part of that identity is quietly taking root in the heart of Chenab.
