Ethan Tapper

Ethan Tapper is a forester, author, birder, naturalist, and digital creator from Vermont. For over a decade, he has worked as a service forester and a consulting forester -- advising landowners, municipalities, conservation organizations, foresters and loggers and responsibly stewarding thousands of acres of public and privately-owned forests. He is recognized as a thought-leader and a disruptor in the conservation community of the northeastern United States and beyond, leading a reimagining of forests and what it means to care for them. Among other awards and distinctions, Ethan has been named the Northeast-Midwest State Foresters Alliance’s Forester of the Year and the American Tree Farm System's National Tree Farm Inspector of the Year.

In 2017, Ethan bought a 175-acre forest in Bolton, Vermont that he named “Bear Island.” When he bought Bear Island, it had, as he says: “every problem that a forest could have.” As Ethan worked to help this forest heal, Bear Island helped him crystallize many of the ideas that would eventually become How to Love a Forest. Today, Ethan spends countless hours working at Bear Island, performing the many bittersweet and beautiful acts required to help this forest “reach towards wholeness again.” Where once he saw Bear Island as a symbol of the disfunction of the modern world, he now sees it as “a symbol of what is possible, a symbol of hope.”

Ethan started writing How to Love a Forest in 2018, after realizing that there was no book that captured his understanding of what forests are, how they work, and what it means to care for them. He wrote the book one hour at a time -- from 5:00 - 6:00 AM -- over the following five years, finally completing it in 2023. It was published by Broadleaf Books in September, 2024!

Ethan now owns and operates his own business -- Bear Island Forestry. -- which provides consulting forestry services, general consulting to government agencies, non-profits and corporations, public speaking, multimedia publication and conservation education. Ethan also writes for Northern Woodlands magazine as well as a variety of other publications, and is a digital creator with tens of thousands of followers on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok (all under the handle @HowToLoveAForest).

In his personal life, Ethan works, writes, hunts and birds at Bear Island and plays in his 10-piece punk band -- The Bubs.