The recent Supreme Court proceedings concerning forest rights in Megamalai took me back to 1968, when I was posted as a forest ranger in Kandamanayakanur. Nearly six decades have passed since. I am now 88. Yet my memories of the forest trails, the abundance of wildlife and the changes that overtook this landscape remain vivid.The Kandamanayakanur forests had once formed part of a zamindari estate of the same name. Following the abolition of the zamindari system under the Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948, the Forest Department took over interim administration on March 2, 1956. Government records place the area at approximately 150 square miles.Villages such as Mayiladumparai, Kadamalaikundu and Varusanadu were associated with the estate. The zamindar maintained a bungalow and agricultural lands. Hunting was practised in those days, and I do not wish to romanticise that period. Nevertheless, substantial stretches of natural forest had survived when the estate passed into government hands.When I served in the range, forest paths led from Kadamalaikundu towards the hills adjoining Cumbum, Kumily and Chinnamanur. The wooded landscape stretched towards Srivilliputhur and Rajapalayam. These were not isolated pockets of trees, but a connected expanse replete with wildlife. Elephants, tigers, leopards, gaur and deer inhabited the forests. I particularly remember the mouse deer, which was commonly encountered then.One incident remains a sombre memory – 11 elephants were poisoned after they had entered encroached forest land and eaten crops raised there. The encroachers, angered by the damage to their cultivation, mixed poison with maize, which the elephants consumed. I was responsible for supervising their post-mortem examinations. It was a distressing illustration of what happens when cultivation advances into wildlife habitat: animals moving through their own forests come to be treated as intruders.The wealth of these forests was not confined to their animals. They contained teak, karungali and venteak, the last a striking tree with a tall, smooth, pale trunk, sometimes called the “naked maiden” of the forest. Kandamanur teak was prized for making bullock carts, particularly their wheels. Honey and other forest produce were also abundant.How the forest land was regularisedA consequential change in forest administration concerned the demarcation of the 2,400-foot contour line. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government assumed office in Tamil Nadu in 1967 under C.N. Annadurai. Government order Ms. no. 2723, Agriculture Department, dated September 14, 1967, dealt with demarcation at that elevation and the regularisation of certain encroachments below it. I remember Shri Sankaramurthy, an Indian Forest Service officer, being involved in this work.The policy was carried forward through GO Ms. no. 2612, Revenue Department, dated September 13, 1971. That order recorded 7,964 encroachment cases covering 18,342.17 acres below the contour line and provided for the conditional assignment of eligible lands to landless poor persons, subject to settlement of existing claims.Elephants in Megamalai forest. Photo: megamalai.in.These orders were not without conditions. Yet, from the vantage point of someone who worked in the forests, the longer-term implications were troubling. Regularising occupation, however carefully framed on paper, could make the conversion of forest land appear increasingly permanent. The loss of forest cover is often insidious. It proceeds piecemeal – a clearing here, a cultivated field there – until a landscape once familiar becomes difficult to recognise. Restoring a natural forest is far more difficult than clearing one.I also remember people whose livelihoods depended on the forest remaining intact. Among their activities was the collection of lac, locally called arakku, from trees such as kusum. Lac was used in sealing wax and natural polish. Its collection called for specialised knowledge of the trees and the forest. Changes in markets and the availability of synthetic substitutes affected such traditional livelihoods.This history makes it important to distinguish traditional dependence on forest produce from the clearing of forest land for commercial cultivation. Genuine forest-dwelling communities must receive the rights recognised by law. Equally, claims to occupation must be examined against settlement records, old forest maps and the circumstances during which land came under cultivation. Neither forest conservation nor lawful rights are served by treating every claim as though its history were the same.The Vaigai riverMy deepest concern, however, is for the Vaigai river. The forests of Megamalai and the Varusanadu hills form an important part of its catchment. Their significance extends far beyond the hills, to the agricultural lands and communities of southern Tamil Nadu that depend upon the river.A healthy forest is a natural bulwark against soil erosion. Trees and undergrowth help retain the earth and moderate the flow of rainwater. During my service, I saw how disturbed forest cover exposed the soil to erosion. In the rains, reddish sediment was carried into streams and then the Vaigai. The damage did not end where the trees had been felled; it travelled downstream.Megamalai forest in Tamil Nadu. Photo: Facebook.That sediment eventually finds its way into reservoirs. Siltation is gradual, but its consequences can be enduring: a dam may still stand while the space available for storing water steadily diminishes. I remember the Lower Katteri reservoir in the Nilgiris as a sobering example of what severe siltation can do. I fear for the future of the Vaigai Dam if the catchment continues to lose its forest cover.Balancing forest rights and conservationThe Supreme Court’s decision on November 6, 2026, to constitute a committee headed by former chief justice of India B.R. Gavai to supervise the scrutiny of forest-rights claims in Megamalai is therefore significant. The task is to recognise lawful claims under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, while ensuring that commercial encroachments do not undermine the protection of the forests.Old settlement papers, government orders, survey maps and forest records should come to the fore in that exercise. They can show how boundaries were drawn, how villages developed and when particular lands were put under cultivation. Such records are not merely administrative relics. They are essential to understanding how the forests reached their present condition.At 88, I can no longer walk through those hills as I did when I was a young forest ranger. But I remember the trees, the animals and the forest streams like I was there yesterday. Protecting what remains of Megamalai is not only a matter of saving wildlife. It is also a question of safeguarding the Vaigai and the lives that depend upon it. We cannot recover the forests of my youth simply by recalling them; we can, however, take greater care of those that remain.K. Kannan is an 88-year-old retired District Forest Officer who served in the Tamil Nadu Forest Department, including as Forest Ranger in Kandamanayakanur from 1968 to 1970.