How to Love a Forest: The Bittersweet Work of Tending a Changing World by Ethan Tapper

2024 Finalist for the Vermont Book Awards

A tender, fearless debut by a forester writing in the tradition of Suzanne Simard, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Robert Macfarlane.

Only those who love trees should cut them, writes forester Ethan Tapper. In How to Love a Forest, he asks what it means to live in a time in which ecosystems are in retreat and extinctions rattle the bones of the earth. How do we respond to the harmful legacies of the past? How do we use our species' incredible power to heal rather than to harm?

Tapper walks us through the fragile and resilient community that is a forest. He introduces us to wolf trees and spring ephemerals, and to the mysterious creatures of the rhizosphere and the necrosphere. He helps us reimagine what forests are and what it means to care for them. This world, Tapper writes, is degraded by people who do too much and by those who do nothing. As the ecosystems that sustain all life struggle, we straddle two worlds: a status quo that treats them as commodities and opposing claims that the only true expression of love for the natural world is to leave it alone.

Proffering a more complex vision, Tapper argues that the actions we must take to protect ecosystems are often counterintuitive, uncomfortable, even heartbreaking. With striking prose, he shows how bittersweet acts--like loving deer and hunting them, loving trees and felling them--can be expressions of compassion. Tapper weaves a new land ethic for the modern world, reminding us that what is simple is rarely true, and what is necessary is rarely easy.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1 Reimagining: Our Forests, Ourselves

2 Responsibility: An Imperfect Forest

3 Legacy: Biography of a Wolf Tree

4 Power: Becoming a Keystone Species

5 Change: The Wind Storm

6 Freedom: A Branch on a Tree, a Tree in a Forest

7 Relationship: The Doe Hunter

8 Humility: The Loggers

9 Resilience: Of Bumblebees and Barberry

10 Beauty: To Plant an Acorn

Afterword

Notes

"Tapper's writing is eloquent and thoughtful while also being informative and briming with lush descriptions of his work to restore Bear Island...Readers will see forests through new eyes after reading Tapper's compelling and compassionate call to action." --Booklist

"Rich with imagery and emotion, How to Love a Forest is a well-cultivated ecosystem of beautiful prose, scientific expertise made approachable, and philosophies on change, life, and death. Through his own experiences managing a nearly hopeless forest in Vermont, author and forester Ethan Tapper brings readers into an imperfect forest in an imperfect world and the imperfect actions necessary to heal both. Tapper's artful descriptions and professional knowledge place the reader in the forest as it is now while an anchoring in history, both natural and human, and an eye to future possibilities move the reader seamlessly through time. In the best way, the book feels like walking with the author as he shows you the woods and what he's learned from tending to it. Refreshing and absorbing, How to Love a Forest renegotiates our relationship to nature and invites readers to imagine how each of us can care for our own slice of the natural world." --Julien Caudle, lead bookseller at An Unlikely Story in Plainville, MA

"A treatise on tough TLC for trees." --Burlington Free Press

"Beautifully written, full of scenes those of us who live in and love the forests of the northeast will recognize immediately." --Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and other books

"Rarely has our personal responsibility for the natural world that supports us been so eloquently articulated. Ecological wisdom abounds in Ethan Tapper's story of restoration: wisdom that needs to be spread far, wide, and fast. His ironic yet accurate message? To save a forest, trees need to die. Read this book and find out why." --Doug Tallamy, author of Nature's Best Hope

"How do we fix a broken world? With patience and love, Ethan Tapper reveals the hidden historical forces that have sculpted our landscapes, and proves that, given enough wisdom and labor, we can still restore our degraded forests. If Aldo Leopold were a twenty-first-century Vermont forester with one good eye and a contemporary understanding of power and privilege, this might be the sort of book he'd write." --Ben Goldfarb, author of Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter and Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet

"I read a lot of books about science and nature, yet rarely do I find a book that feels so welcoming and accessible while also delivering important and novel information; I wrote in the margins on each page exclamations of wonder and awe, and I learned many new concepts about forest ecology. Tapper takes a wide view back into the history of human disturbance in nature, and a philosophical overview of how we can work toward a more mutualistic relationship with the forests in the future. This is a manifesto against apathy, for as Tapper came to realize in his early days as a forester, there's 'nothing radical about doing nothing.' Tapper offers insights and suggestions for how to love a forest sustainably." --Frances Cannon, interdisciplinary writer, editor, educator, and artist; Mellon Science and Nature Writing Fellow at Kenyon College

"With strong prose, Ethan Tapper creates an impassioned argument for why each of us should create a more holistic and responsible relationship with our forests--not solely the trees, but the incredible diversity of organisms that exist within them." --Tom Wessels, author of Reading the Forested Landscape

Ethan Tapper is a forester, author of How to Love a Forest, and content creator from Vermont. For more than a decade, Tapper has been recognized as a thought leader and a disruptor in the worlds of forestry, conservation, and ecosystem stewardship, winning multiple regional and national awards for his work. His message of relationship, responsibility, and hope reaches millions of people each year through his writing, social media channels, public speaking, and advocacy. In his personal life, Tapper works, writes, hunts, and birds at Bear Island, his 175-acre working forest, homestead, orchard, and sugarbush, and plays in a punk band.

Broadleaf Books

Pub Date: September 10, 2024

1.0" H x 8.8" L x 5.8" W

229 pages

Hardcover