"Honestly speaking, I'm both surprised and pleased to see that communities have realised the importance of vegetation after they've seen for themselves what we had long failed to convince them of," said Yousaf Qureshi, head of the wildlife department in Pakistani Kashmir.

The 7.6 magnitude earthquake killed more than 73,000 people, most of the in the Pakistani Himalayas.

Many people were killed when landslides triggered by the quake swept down mountain slopes, taking villages, farms and roads with them. In some areas, whole mountain sides collapsed.

The landslides were particularly severe on slopes that had been stripped of their cover of pines and Himalayan hardwood trees, while many forested slopes remained intact.

"People now realise the damage done by deforestation and pledge to work with us to make up the losses," Qureshi said.

Forests cover about 11 percent of Pakistani Kashmir compared with nearly 30 percent in 1947, when Pakistan and India gained independence from Britain and fought their first war over the region soon afterwards.

Pakistani Kashmir, known for its top-quality cedar wood, had been generating income from timber for decades until a government decision to ban felling officially in 1997.

But the extraction of "dead, decayed or diseased" trees was allowed to continue, which critics say gave powerful, so-called timber mafias the loop-hole they needed to continue stripping the slopes.

With fines for illegal felling at less than a paltry $10 a tree, villagers have also carried on cutting trees for wood for building and fuel.

Experts also point to the dangerous practice of clearing steep slopes and carving terraces into them for cultivation.

"We don't have any proper land use planning, which also contributed to the huge losses," said forestry official Younis Malik, who said some countries ban cultivation on slopes of more than 30 degrees.

"The trees are nails which have griped the mountains and kept them stable," Malik said.

"Our ecology was already affected and the mountains had become fragile on account of mining, blasting and felling and could not survive the jolts of the quake," he said.

"A HELL OF A LOT OF TIMBER"

As survivors begin pulling their lives together and rebuild ruined homes, fears for remaining forests are growing, even if more people now understand the importance of trees in binding the loose, rocky soil.

"Now the people will definitely start cutting trees out of necessity," said forestry official Chaudhry Mohammad Bashir.

"There may have been a change in the approach of the people, but tell me, what they can do when they don't have any proper shelter and heating?"

Bashir says the government should import timber for both construction and firewood to protect remaining forests.

"We need a hell of a lot of timber for reconstruction and I'm worried where that much volume will come from," he said.

According to official figures, 246,280 houses of different kinds were destroyed or damaged in Pakistani Kashmir and have to be rebuilt.

"If we supply only 100 cubic feet of timber for one house, which is a very small volume, even then we'll need 24.6 million cubic feet," Bashir said.

"And I believe up in the mountains, people will cut a minimum of two trees for every household."

Qureshi, whose department has been developing four national parks in Pakistani Kashmir, says while the quake taught an invaluable lesson about the importance of trees, people still needed to be encouraged to save their forests.

He and his staff have set up village conservation committees which will try to drive home the message.