Srinagar, July 3 -- Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has done something governments, activists and environmental campaigns rarely achieve.

He has declared that dumping untreated sewage, solid waste and hazardous material into rivers is a sin under Islamic law.

That ruling reaches beyond Iraq, and speaks directly to Kashmir, where environmental decline has become a public habit disguised as someone else's fault.

Kashmir still sells itself as paradise. Tourists photograph mesmerizing meadows, while residents speak with pride about a landscape unlike any other.

Daily conduct, however, tells a different story.

Plastic bottles choke streams, household waste finds its way into rivers, wetlands shrink beneath encroachments, construction debri...