The Chinar is fast disappearing. It is the heritage tree (a deciduous Platanus Oriental) of Kashmir, India’s northern border region. It is linked to Kashmir’s romantic splendor, spiritual vibrancy, ecology, politics, literature, and much more.
But due to urbanization and unplanned development, many have been cut down, setting alarm bells ringing. This has caused anxiety among environmentalists, heritage activists, cultural commentators and civil society actors. Yet they refuse to surrender hope and maintain a desire to preserve the Chinar for posterity.
Experts cite official apathy and public greed as the two major factors behind the diminishing numbers of Chinars. According to Jammu & Kashmir’s (J&K) floriculture department, there are currently about 35,000 Chinars left. From an estimated 50,000 in the 1980s and 42,000 in the 1990s, the number of plane trees has drastically reduced.
These are official numbers. Independent estimates put the number of Chinars at less than 20,000. At least one-third of these trees have been diagnosed as damaged or diseased in a census conducted by the Forest Research Institute (FRI) in 2023.
Muhammad Sultan Wadoo, former chief conservator of the J&K forests department, in his book The Trees of Our Heritage records that only 17,124 Chinars are left in Kashmir, of which more than 700 are chopped down annually. Imagining Kashmir’s picturesque landscape, without visualizing the Chinar (or the plane tree) is akin to considering Britain, Fran.
