On an autumn morning last year Kashmiris in Lamnian, 60km south of Muzafarrabad (Pakistan) , watched in horror as an ambulance skidded off the road and plunged into a field. Horror turned to bemusement when the rear doors of the crashed vehicle, driven by a Pakistani soldier, swung open to reveal planks of sawn timber. "We were surprised to see this in an ambulance, which is supposed to carry people wounded by shelling," said one of the villagers. Kashmir is barely clinging on to some the world's most glorious forests, and soldiers, villagers, officials and timber merchants are blamed for their depletion.