Cottrell-Baldwin Environmental Lecture Series: "How to Love a Forest" with Author Ethan Tapper
Fox State Forest

Snow covered tree branches bending over a snowy trail

The 2025 Cottrell-Baldwin Environmental Lecture Series will feature 4 New England authors writing on themes of wildlife and forests from their own unique personal histories and experiences as wildlife biologists, naturalists and foresters.

What does it mean to love a forest? Only those who love trees should cut them, writes forester Ethan Tapper. In How to Love a Forest, he asks: what does it mean 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? How do we reach a better future? How to Love a Forest details the fragile and resilient community that is a forest, introducing us to wolf trees and spring ephemerals. It helps us reimagine what forests are and what it means to care for them. Tapper writes forests are degraded both by people who do too much and by those who do nothing. We straddle a status quo that treats ecosystems as commodities and opposing claims that the only true expression of love for the natural world is to leave it alone.

In his tender and fearless literary debut, Tapper proffers a more complex vision. He writes that we must take action to protect ecosystems, and that the actions we must take will often be counterintuitive, uncomfortable, even heartbreaking. In striking prose, he shows how bittersweet acts—loving deer and hunting deer, loving trees and felling trees—can be radical expressions of compassion. In this poetic, visionary book, 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.
 
To Register: This event is free to the public. RSVPs are strongly encouraged, however walk-ins will be welcomed! With questions, contact tripley@forestsociety.org
 
About the Author: Ethan Tapper is a forester and writer based in Vermont. Since 2012, he has worked as a consulting forester and service forester, managing public and private forestlands and advising thousands of landowners. Tapper leads dozens of public events each year, maintains an active social media presence, and writes a column in newspapers and a quarterly column in Northern Woodlands magazine. He has received numerous awards and distinctions, including being named Forester of the Year by the Northeast-Midwest State Foresters Alliance in 2021. Tapper manages Bear Island, his 175-acre forest and homestead in Bolton, Vermont, and plays in a punk band.
 

Date:
Time: 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Address:
309 Center Rd
Hillsborough, NH 03244

(RSVP required)
(RSVP required)