The photographs reached my phone on the morning of April 12, 2026. A friend from Mochwa Baghe Mehtab sent images of workers moving along Canal Road with axes, targeting the mulberry trees that had lined this embankment since the 1970s. 

Sawdust covered the ground where six trees had already fallen. The remaining fifty-six stood in the path of chainsaws scheduled to return the following day.

I posted the images to social media within the hour. The response came rapidly: nearly one lakh views, messages flooding in from sericulture workers, environmentalists, and families who remembered the oxygen shortages of 2021. 

Director Ajaz Ahmad Bhat of the Jammu and Kashmir Sericulture Development Department was in Delhi attending to his wife’s medical treatment when the calls reached him. He issued a stop-work order the following morning, canceling the permission his own department had granted three weeks earlier. The remaining trees stayed standing because enough people raised their voices at the right moment.

The confrontation revealed a deeper conflict between development imperatives and environmental law. 

The Roads and Buildings Department’s Rajbagh division had sought removal of ninety-two mulberry trees in November 2025, citing road-widening needs along the Bund Road corridor. After field verification, the Sericulture Department approved sixty-two trees for auction on March 20, 2026. 

The contract, awarded to a local contractor for Rs 1.10 crores, specified an eighteen-month completion window. I examined the tender documents, and they contained no environmental impact assessment, no reference to the Jammu and Kashmir Preservation of Specified Trees Act of 1969, which bans mulberry felling entirely, or the Jammu and Kashmir Mulberry Protection Act of 1949.

I calculated what these trees actually produce. 

A single mature mulberry tree generates approximately 3,000 kilograms of oxygen annually while absorbing over 4,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide. The sixty-two trees on Canal Road collectively produce 1,86,000 kilograms of oxygen yearly, equivalent to the output of more than 4,000 jumbo medical cylinders. 

At current market rates of Rs 10,000 to Rs 16,000 per cylinder, replacing this natural production would cost approximately Rs 5.20 crores annually. 

During the COVID-19 crisis of 2020-2021, I watched families pay black-market prices of Rs 50,000 per cylinder while hospitals turned patients away. These trees generate that same oxygen daily, without supply chains, price fluctuations, or depletion.

The air purification capacity extends beyond oxygen production. 

Canal Avenue handles thousands of vehicles daily, releasing particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen fluoride, and chlorine compounds. Mulberry leaves possess exceptional absorption properties for PM2.5 and PM10 particles, the microscopic pollutants that penetrate deep into human respiratory tissue. 

The canopies along this corridor filter industrial and vehicular emissions continuously, functioning as stationary air treatment facilities rooted in place for decades.

Flood protection adds another dimension of value. 

The Doodhganga channel requires stable embankments during Kashmir’s monsoon seasons. Tree canopies intercept rainfall, reducing surface water velocity. Root systems create underground channels that absorb stormwater rather than allowing it to flow horizontally. 

A mature mulberry tree absorbs over 400 liters during a single storm event. Sixty-two trees collectively manage 24,800 liters per downpour. Research indicates that tree cover combined with natural ground cover reduces stormwater runoff by up to sixty-five percent. 

The sericulture department planted these specific trees along flood channels precisely because they stabilize soil and prevent embankment breaches.

The economic calculus involves more than timber value. These sixty-two trees produce approximately 1,860 kilograms of mulberry leaves annually, supporting silkworm cultivation that yields roughly 149 kilograms of cocoons. 

At current bivoltine rates of Rs 450 per kilogram, direct cocoon sales generate Rs 67,000 yearly. The processing chain, including reeling, twisting, weaving, and dyeing, multiplies this value three to five times, creating total annual economic activity of approximately Rs 2 lakhs. 

The trees generate 310 man-days of employment annually for leaf collectors, rearers, cocoon handlers, and textile workers.

Sericulture remains embedded in Kashmiri identity. The industry supports 34,000 families across 2,880 villages in Jammu and Kashmir. Cocoon production reached 8.5 lakh kilograms in 2024-25, marking an 18 percent increase that signals active sector revival. 

Mulberry trees provide additional community resources: fruit for nutrition, branches for winter firewood, leaves as calcium-rich livestock fodder. These trees serve multiple purposes simultaneously, without requiring irrigation infrastructure, fertilizer inputs, or maintenance budgets.

The immediate threat of felling has passed, though a secondary danger remains. 

The R&B Department’s contract includes concretization of the embankment pathway: laying concrete tiles and paving surfaces around existing trees. This practice violates multiple legal frameworks. 

Municipal regulations throughout India require one meter of unpaved, open soil around tree trunks to maintain aeration and water percolation. 

The Delhi Preservation of Trees Act of 1994 explicitly prohibits concretization, with the Delhi High Court and Forest Department ordering concrete removal and imposing fines for violations. The National Green Tribunal has issued comparable directives nationwide.

Concrete surfaces surrounding tree bases create fatal conditions. Roots suffocate without gas exchange. Water cannot penetrate to root zones during dry periods. 

The sixty-two saved trees would face gradual decline over subsequent years, killed by the infrastructure project that spared them from immediate axes.

I filed formal complaints with local residents and the Jammu and Kashmir Pollution Control Committee. On April 17, 2026, Regional Director JKPCC Kashmir issued official communication directing the Executive Engineer of R&B Division Rajbagh to cancel the tender. 

The directive cited violations of the Jammu and Kashmir Preservation of Specified Trees Act and the Jammu and Kashmir Mulberry Protection Act. The Executive Engineer faces a decision that will determine whether environmental law takes precedence over contractual obligations.

This episode illuminates broader patterns in Kashmir’s development administration. Government departments issued permissions that contravened existing statutes. Tender documents omitted mandatory environmental clauses. Field verification procedures approved tree removal without calculating atmospheric, hydrological, or economic losses. 

But social media exposure and individual intervention proved more effective than institutional oversight in enforcing legal protections.

Why Kashmir’s Mulberry Trees Are Disappearing

J&K Govt Puts Mulberry Tree Felling On Hold After Public Outcry

Srinagar’s air quality measurements continue to register particulate levels exceeding World Health Organization guidelines. The city experiences periodic flooding that tests embankment integrity. The silk industry seeks expansion to absorb unemployed youth. 

Each of these challenges intersects along Canal Road, where sixty-two trees perform work that no government scheme replicates.

The saws have stopped for now, the concrete trucks have halted, and the mulberry trees continue producing oxygen, absorbing carbon, filtering pollution, anchoring soil, feeding silkworms, and employing workers. 

Their value accumulates daily, measured in liters of clean air, kilograms of silk, and the absence of crisis that characterized the pandemic years. 

Whether this accounting enters official development mathematics depends on which documents the Executive Engineer signs next.

© Kashmir Observer