During the British rule in India, forests were village properties and the traditional cover of grass, bushes and broad-leaf trees provided shade to the undergrowth, shelter to wildlife, and was also a perennial source of underground water.Not so any more. The Uttarakhand region is a glaring example where chir trees have wrought environmental havoc. Keeping in view the ecological disaster wrought by the chir trees, the Government came up with a decision two years ago to replace them by broad-leaf trees.But this decision has not been implemented yet.