How to Love a Forest: The Bittersweet Work of Tending a Changing World- Released September 10th

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 (September 10), Ethan Tapper 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 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.

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

By Ethan Tapper

US $28.99 | Hardcover | 6 x 9 | 9798889830559

Publication date: September 10, 2024

Praise for How to Love a Forest:

“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

“Forests are a place so many of us find peace, inspiration, and balance, yet the complexity of our relationships with these ecosystems and the reciprocal role we play as stewards is seldom acknowledged. How to Love a Forest bravely and eloquently explores the powerful connections made and restored by engaging fully with the ecology, wonders, and challenges found in our forests, providing an important perspective of love, care, and action so needed at a time of unprecedented change.”

—Tony D’Amato, professor of Silviculture and Applied Forest Ecology, and Forestry Program director, Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Vermont

“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

“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