SRINAGAR: When the seasons paint Kashmir in myriad hues, the Chinar burns crimson in autumn and glows inexperienced in spring. However even giants fall. Through the years, this legally protected tree has been felled — typically by the axe of greed, typically on the frail excuse of decay.
No extra. Now, every Chinar has been given an id. By way of the “Digital Tree Aadhaar” initiative by J&Okay Forest Analysis Institute (JKFRI), Chinars have been assigned distinctive numbers — etched into the digital world with geographic info methods (GIS) and QR codes to allow real-time monitoring and monitoring.
“It’s like a automobile plate quantity,” mentioned forest division officer Syed Tariq Kashani, who carried out the Chinar census over time. “By way of a automobile quantity, you determine the whole lot in regards to the automobile and its proprietor. In the identical method, now we have completed this for Chinar bushes.”
Metallic playing cards dangle from their branches like medals of honour, carrying knowledge — location, top, well being — etched in codes, scannable at a contact. Their digital footprint ensures that each tree will be tracked, its well being examined, its absence accounted for.
Urbanisation, local weather change, and unlawful felling have all taken a toll on these majestic bushes that may develop as much as 98 toes tall with massive maple-like leaves. With the Aadhaar, encroachment, unlawful felling, and neglect can not go unnoticed.
As soon as, the variety of Chinars in Kashmir was misplaced in uncertainty — rumours positioned them anyplace between 4,000 and 40,000. However when Kashani and his workforce started their work in 2021, the reality emerged from the shadows — 28,560 Chinar bushes stood counted throughout Kashmir, although many extra stay hidden behind the excessive fences of navy cantonments, ready for permission to be recorded.
Step-by-step, yr by yr, the census grew — 18,000 bushes geotagged in 2021-22, one other 10,000 in 2023-24. Every tree, measured and recorded, was marked for its longitude, latitude, altitude, well being, top, and even “diameter at breast top”.
Amongst them, some stand taller than the remaining, carrying centuries of their rings. Budgam district holds a few of the oldest Chinars in Asia, their roots digging deep into the valley’s soul. And in Ganderbal, a brand new legend has emerged — a tree so huge that it overshadows the beforehand declared largest Chinar within the continent.
“The girth of this newly recorded tree is 22m, its top 27m,” mentioned Kashani. “The older record-holder was smaller — 14m in girth and 16m tall.” But even this big bows to a larger one — the world’s largest Chinar, present in Europe’s Georgia, standing at 27m in girth and 30m excessive.
The Chinar, or “Bouin” as it’s known as in Kashmiri, has been right here lengthy earlier than the Mughal emperors, although historical past credit Akbar with planting an estimated 1,200 Chinars in Naseem Bagh close to Dal Lake in Srinagar. Even right this moment, that legacy survives — rows of Chinars nonetheless standing.
Bijbehara — the “City of Chinars” — stays a residing monument to those giants. Right here, the bushes collect like sages in silent communion, their gnarled branches stretching skyward, their canopies casting shadows older than town streets they overlook.
However historical past alone can’t shield the Chinar. The digital Aadhaar ensures these bushes are not simply silent sentinels however monitored beings.
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