From past many years we have been continuously hearing of trees being cut down mercilessly in Kashmir. The absence of an effective institutional mechanism has made it easier for unscrupulous elements to vandalise the recourses and bruise the beauty of this valley. From every part of the valley we have been receiving such complaints over a period of past many years. In certain cases there were even some eyewitness accounts that provided the details of how wood is smuggled from forest and transported to different destinations within and outside state. Such incidents are not few and far between but have acquired a pattern now. From past two decades we have been witness to a large scale felling of trees by unscrupulous elements, both civil and defence. Since the forest areas have been made, literally out of bounds for a common man, these unscrupulous elements get a free hand in inflicting heavy damage to our forests. All of it may not get reported, rather very little trickles down to media circles but the general impression among the people in Kashmir is that a nexus of government employees, security personal and some unscrupulous sections of society is taking an undue advantage of the circumstances and are involved in stealing the green gold at an enormous level. In most of the cases even the concerned civil officials find themselves in a helpless situation because in forest areas things have been made very difficult for them to work. No one has the power to stop this nexus from smuggling the wood from forests of Kashmir. In the absence of any civilian check such elements enjoy unrestricted access to forest areas. If Kashmir has to be saved from such loot of its forest wealth government has to put in place arrangements that are adequate enough to counter the unscrupulous elements. Also the NGOs working for the preservation of environment can contribute by taking up the issue at national and international level and the government needs to gear up its machinery to stop the felling of trees.