How to Love a Forest

Name: How to Love a Forest
ISBN: 9798341900196

The Bittersweet Work of Tending a Changing World

by Ethan Tapper

Publisher

Broadleaf Books

Publication

Mar 24, 2026

Format

Paperback/Softback

Illustrated

Price

19.99

Dimensions

5.5 x 8.5 in

ISBN

9798341900196

Pages

229

Age

Adult 18+

Rights Sold

*DropCap does not represent English Audio (Worldwide) language rights

Description

Winner of the New England Book Award

Finalist for the Vermont Book Award

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.

Awards & Endorsements

Tom Wessels, author of Reading the Forested Landscape

"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."

Author(s)

Ethan Tapper

Ethan Tapper is a forester, writer, and content creator based in Vermont. Since 2012, he has worked as a consulting forester and service forester, managing thousands of acres of public and private forestlands, advising thousands of landowners, and receiving numerous regional and national awards and distinctions for his work. Today, Tapper manages his consulting forestry business, delivers talks and keynotes across North America, and maintains social media accounts that reach millions of people each year. In his spare time, Tapper manages Bear Island, his 175-acre working forest, homestead, and sugarbush, and plays in a punk band.