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

In the early pages, How to Love a Forest by Ethan Tapper seems despairing, a gloom and doom account of forest destruction. But no, as a forester, and a steward in Vermont, Tapper soon acknowledges the need for change, and alters the tone of his book. When lone “wolf” trees, symbolizing old growth are removed, fewer beeches and white pines dominate. Not only young trees replace them, but also the community of bacteria, invertebrates, and free-living fungi around the roots. And no less, the change of new pests and pathogens occurs, along with non-native invasives.

Tapper paints a picture of successive human populations over thousands of years, an altered landscape as wildlife, then domesticated animals, and now great swatches of deer occupy the territory. The book’s charm lies in its personal perceptions, and the experience developed season by season as the author’s expertise grows. Even herbicides, once abhorred, he sees may play a beneficial role as conservation and preservation work together, no longer displaying the earlier bitter conflict. A forest, he claims, “is best described as a creature of diversity and complexity and depth.” And with this he ends triumphantly, planting acorns to ensure a wealth of oak trees for future generations.