S.6 Ep.11: How To Love a Forest

Sometime the hardest thing and the right thing are the same. It is true of relationships, and it is true of forests. In this episode, we talk with author Ethan Tapper about his new book, How to Love a Forest. A Vermont Forester, Ethan dives deep with us into what it means to love a forest as a landowner and a forester, and to work with those who may not see the potential in restoring their forest. 

To earn CEU/CFE credits, learn more, or interact with SilviCast, visit the uwsp.edu/SilviCast.

Transcript

S6 E10 How to Love a Forest

[Greg Edge]

Welcome to Silvicast, the podcast about all things silviculture. My name is Greg Edge. 

[Brad Hutnik]

And I'm Brad Hutnick.

[Greg Edge]

And we are both silviculturists with the Wisconsin DNR Division of Forestry and your host for today's show. 

This episode of Silvicast is dedicated in memory of our friend, fellow Wisconsin DNR forester and UW-Stevens Point alum, Adam Zirbel, who passed away on September 22nd, 2025, while serving the citizens of Wisconsin. Adam dedicated 24 years of service as a forester and wildland firefighter, sustainably managing and protecting Wisconsin's natural resources.

*moment of silence*

[Brad Hutnik]

Brad, welcome to the end of season six. 

[Brad Hutnik]

Wow. End of season six.

Can you believe we're still here? I have a hard time believing we're still here, Greg.

[Greg Edge]

Well, you know, they've tried to kick us off the air and they just couldn't get rid of us.

[Brad Hutnik]

We're like the cockroaches of silviculture, huh? You cannot extinguish us. We're going to be around.

[Greg Edge]

Yeah. We just keep coming back. Sorry, folks.

[Brad Hutnik]

Yep. 

[Greg Edge]

So it's end of season six and as is our custom here on Silvicast.

[Brad Hutnik]

Do we have custom? Okay. Let's get this out of the way.

Is it custom or tradition? 

[Greg Edge]

What's the difference? 

[Brad Hutnik]

Well, see now you're a silviculturist.

You're tuned into these minutia of the forest, yet you're going to just let these terms go as like, well, who cares? Okay.

Let's call it a custom. You'll be comfortable with the custom. So let's call it a custom.

[Greg Edge]

I'm not going to fight you on that term. I think we're allowed to form customs after five years.

That's what I heard at least. All right. So we're in season six and as is our custom, we're going to get a little more philosophical on this last episode of the season, and I think today's topic actually is perfectly fitting as a dedication to our friend, Adam Zirbel.

Because today on Silvicast, we're going to once again speak with forester Ethan Tapper, this time about a topic that's a little different. 

[Brad Hutnik]

Ooh, this is going to be good. Now you may recall, Ethan talked with us on our, why does my paint gun hate me episode. I really liked, I thought it was good. And we know that he really knows his way around a paint gun.

So he was really good on that.

[Greg Edge]

Yes. But just like Peyton Manning says, he's so much more than a quarterback. I think that's what the commercial says.

Ethan is so much more than just a Forester because he is going to talk to us today about his new book, How to Love a Forest.

[Brad Hutnik]

And I have to admit, I am impressed when I hear things like that, because there are not many Foresters out there who also write books or maybe, maybe books that we want to read?

[Greg Edge]

Well, I mean, there's a lot of, there are textbook writers, right? 

[Brad Hutnik]

Yeah. Yep.

[Greg Edge]

But this is not a textbook.

[Brad Hutnik]

Okay. Right. This is much better than a textbook.

And so he really has my respect and we've read it. It's a really good book. He basically takes the idea of communicating the things that we're talking about and really makes it possible, right?

Kind of bringing silviculture to a wider audience, which I think for us, I mean, it's, that's just the coolest thing in the world.

[Greg Edge]

I think that's his goal. And so we're going to talk with Ethan today about this book, kind of how he went about writing it. That's interesting.

I don't know how to go about writing a book, never have done it. And also a little bit about what he wants to communicate to both foresters and landowners through the stories that he tells.

[Brad Hutnik]

Yeah. You know, Greg, you know, every time we hear something, you go, Ooh, there's an idea, so, Ooh, here's an idea.

We should start writing too.

[Greg Edge]

Really?

[Brad Hutnik]

And, and, you know, okay. Hey, hey, hey, hear me out. Hear me out.

[Greg Edge]

I don't think so.

[Brad Hutnik]

Uh, silviculture poetry.

[Greg Edge]

Okay. That's probably a small audience that might go after that, but.

[Brad Hutnik]

It's going to be big, Greg, it's going to be big. Well, and there are some big names who've written poems about trees, right? So we, Robert Frost has talked about them.

Emily Dickinson, Molly Tuttle, but, but they don't get into the stuff behind the trees, right? They just see the tree as something pretty. And we're there for something more than the, our aesthetic is more than visual.

They're missing the forest for the trees, Greg.

[Greg Edge]

Molly Tuttle. What does that have to do with this?

[Brad Hutnik]

Well, you know who, she's a bluegrass singer. She wrote a song, Crooked Tree, and we should put a link to that song because it's really good. Um, and it is, it's really, really good, but it's, you know, it's a song.

So it's kind of poetry. So here, I'll give you an example. Here's what we should do.

[Greg Edge]

Okay.

[Brad Hutnik]

This is, this is going to be big, Greg. It's going to be big.

[Greg Edge]

This is silviculture poetry.

[Brad Hutnik]

Silviculture poetry. Do I hit my bongo drums right now? 

[Brad Hutnik]

You, you should be doing it.

Yep. We should turn the lights down a little bit. You may want to have a, a, well, you don't need a beer.

A beer wouldn't be sufficient here.

[Greg Edge]

I don't know if you can hear this, but I'm snapping my fingers.

[Brad Hutnik]

Yeah.

[Greg Edge]

Okay. Good. Good.

[Brad Hutnik]

All right. Yo, man. Yo, man.

All right. The shelterwood I set forth to lighten the canopy, gathering some, leaving others, is the light just so will the seedlings grow beneath this cathedral of oaks, or do I need to do more? Underplant enriching my soul with progeny unknown.

[Greg Edge]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I think you should emphasize the underplant more. Underplant.

[Brad Hutnik]

Underplant. Yeah. Well, all right. We'll, we'll work on it. 

[Greg Edge]

Enriching my soul. Yeah.

I think you need to work on this some more. 

[Brad Hutnik]

We'll work on it. All right. But, but wait, wait, let's, I'll give you another one here. Cause you know, it's good to have an audience.

[Greg Edge]

Oh, you've got more. Okay.

[Brad Hutnik]

All right, here we go. Mycorrhiza, searching, giving, but taking, mother tree. Giving, but taking, right?

[Greg Edge]

Yeah. I get it. Yeah.

[Brad Hutnik]

Jumbo, but shrimp. It's, it's big. It's going to be big.

[Greg Edge]

I'm just going to say, just keep working on it. Um, well, it may not be ready for prime time. Yeah.

[Brad Hutnik]

Well, so we'll, we'll get there. We'll get there.

[Greg Edge]

Let's go see what Ethan has to say.

[Brad Hutnik]

This season of Silvicast is brought to you by the Nelson paint company, McCoy construction and forestry, and the family forest carbon program. You make the Silvicast world go round. So thank you.

[Greg Edge]

Ethan Tapper. Welcome back to Silvicast. It's great to have you back.

[Ethan Tapper]

Thanks for having me.

[Brad Hutnik]

You're in the two time club now. So Greg, I think we only have a couple of people in the two time.

[Greg Edge]

Yeah. You're up there with Dan day.

[Brad Hutnik]

And Tony D'Amato. 

[Greg Edge]

Oh yeah. Tony. Ooh, yeah. 

[Ethan Tapper]

Rarefied air.

[Brad Hutnik]

Yeah, that's right.

[Ethan Tapper]

Maybe it's a bad sign. I don't know. Maybe it just, you know, the two timers got nothing else going on.

So we got to come back here.

[Greg Edge]

I doubt that. I think, uh, it's from what I hear, it sounds like you've been very busy lately.

And in fact, that's one reason that we had you back because we saw that you wrote a book, how to love a forest, and we wanted to talk to you about that. So we know you've been busy with your field work and working with landowners and your own property, and then now the book thing. So, so you've been very busy.

[Ethan Tapper]

Yeah. I mean, the other part of it, so that book came out, it's actually almost a year old. Now.

I think the last time we spoke, I was in a hotel room. We're talking about paint guns and I was in a hotel room on the book tour sometime last fall and yeah, since then I've done like 150 events all over the continent. And now to talk about the book and all different kinds of places.

It's very exciting. And then the other part of, so I guess I should piece together my livelihood. Is I am a consulting forester and I run my own consulting forestry company, which is just a one man show.

It's just me working with private landowners here in Northwestern Vermont. And then, you know, I do this writing thing and public speaking has become an increasingly big part of my job that I get hired by conservation organizations and all different kinds of folks to come and do talks. And then I'm also now in this world of social media and being something that I'm trying to figure out a better word for than influencer, which is maybe content creator, digital storyteller, or something like that.

But yes, built up a little following across Instagram and Facebook and TikTok and YouTube of a couple hundred thousand followers. And I get to talk to people all over the world about stuff through that. Modality as well.

[Brad Hutnik]

Influencer might be right, right. Cause you're reaching out and hitting a number of people. In fact, I saw an announcement recently.

I said, wait, he's going to be on the episode. I saw that you won the Hagenstein communicator award from SAF.

[Ethan Tapper]

Yeah. A great, a great honor.

[Brad Hutnik]

So which kind of recognizes that you're doing a lot of outreach. So that's pretty cool.

[Ethan Tapper]

Yeah, it was very exciting. It's always exciting to win a national award and or any award really. And especially from, from the society of American foresters.

[Greg Edge]

Yeah, that's very cool.

[Ethan Tapper]

Yeah. It's been, it's been a wild ride. And then, yeah, trying to still find time.

I, I live here on my land to call bear Island, which I talk a lot about in the book and trying to find time to, to take care of this place, luckily it's been, this is now year eight and most of the land is in like a pretty good place. I can be off doing other stuff, going and giving talks and working on my clients land and not feel like I'm, you know, leaving some big situation. Unresolved.

There's always stuff, you know, there's, there's invasive plants to be controlled that has been hanging over me and brush hogging and orchard stuff and skitter stuff, but for the most part, we're in pretty good shape. So that's, that's the one part of my life that I feel like I've had to. Put in the, on the back burner a little bit for now with all this other stuff going on.

[Greg Edge]

Yeah. Well, good thing it's all long-term stuff. So stretch it out a little bit.

I was really interested in the story you told about how you became a Forester. I thought, man, that is even a more convoluted journey than Brad's to get to forestry. And we won't go into that Brad.

[Brad Hutnik]

Greg, you say it's like a bad thing. It's a great thing, Greg. 

[Greg Edge]

It's a good thing. It's a good thing. I'm just making an observation. People are saying, people are saying.

[Brad Hutnik]

Yeah. Okay. Whatever. I get it. 

[Greg Edge]

So Ethan, could you just tell us a little bit about how you decided to become a Forester?

[Ethan Tapper]

So I grew up in Southeastern Vermont in this rural little village called Saxton's river, Connecticut river valley. It was very rural. We were surrounded by forests, but I didn't ever think that this was going to be a big part of my life.

And when I compare my journey to like other, you know, nature writers and ecologists and biologists and Foresters that I admire, this is something that I feel like almost all of them were like, Oh yeah. I was always the nature kid. You know, I was always in the woods.

I was always knew that this was something that I wanted to do or that I wanted to work in the woods to be in the woods or whatever, and that wasn't my experience at all. And actually what sort of catalyzed me becoming a Forester was that got a scholarship to go to the university of Vermont and my first like serious girlfriend, my high school girlfriend, who I was still with at the time, she went on this like wilderness program, this five month expedition. And when she came back, she had had this like huge life changing experience.

And I had not, I'd just been bumming around taking random classes at the university of Vermont. And so we, and we weren't connecting and I thought we were going to break up. And so, you know, I basically was like, well, you know what I'm going to do?

Like any perfectly reasonable, rational 19 year old. I was like, well, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go on an expedition.

And the next program with that, or the next expedition with that program left in two weeks. And it was a six month expedition. We skied North for three months and we built a canoe and canoed back down.

I started, you know, I did it on a whim. It ostensibly for no reason, you know, their relationship didn't work out. And, but it totally changed the course of my life.

And then I just wanted to be in the woods. And so I ended up working as a wilderness guide and I lived in this like uninsulated yurt in the woods of Maine with a fur bough floor for a year, did a little bit of draft horse logging, and then got a letter from the university of Vermont that I had to come back or I was going to lose my scholarship. And I picked forestry out of a list of majors.

I didn't know what it was. I literally just was like, well, this has the word forest in it. Must be something about forests, you know, sounds pretty good.

And I decided to go do that. So that's, that's the journey that kind of brought me there. But then it was actually really a blessing having taken that time off because then once I got back, I was just, you know, I figured out that forestry was something that I really wanted to do.

I was just like, you know, let's do this. Let's really do this. And I was serious about it.

I think in a way that a lot of my peers who had just decided to be forestry majors when they were 18, you know, by the time they were 21 didn't want to do it as much anymore. I had a different journey where I was like, let's do this, let's go. And then just like, you know, ate and drank and slept forestry.

You know, and I was like, this is what I'm doing.

[Brad Hutnik]

You know, it's kind of funny in some ways that almost made you like a, a not, it sounds like the experience of sometimes non-traditional students because they step away, they're doing something. Maybe yours was a little more compressed, but, but you kind of got that, the benefit of that by being able to step away and then come back and having that perspective. That's really cool.

[Ethan Tapper]

Yeah. Yeah. And, and it was an interesting journey for me too, which I write about a little bit in the book where I think parallels the journey that I kind of bring a lot of people on now from the general public, where when I got out of that experience of, you know, living in the bush and work, you know, working in the woods in that way, I thought that I had figured out how everything about forest, how they worked and what the only like responsible relationship with them could be, which was this very, like hands off, leave no trace kind of attitude. And then I went to forestry school and I was like, Holy smokes, I don't understand these ecosystems at all. You know?

And, and then once I allowed myself to learn more about them and engage more deeply with them and just go deeper, you know, suddenly I was like these ecosystems that I had thought of as being just these perfect and pristine and utopian things were actually like deeply troubled, you know, and deeply important and also like wounded and in need of help. And I also started to see the, the other parts of it, like the cultural and economic parts of it that tie into all these ecological parts of it too. And, and how this, you know, the, sometimes I feel like we're asking the wrong question of our forest, where we're like, we're asking like, how do we take care of our forest or how do we get resources from our forest?

When, when the question that we really want to ask is, you know, how do we live here? Really? You know, how, how do we balance all of these different needs and desires that we have for our forest with the forest that we have with the people that we have with the communities that we have and, you know, and try to balance all of these different things at once.

And once you start, you know, it's, it's, it's easy for people who don't really understand the complexities of these, what we call these, what Tony D'Amato would call these socio ecological systems to say, Oh, it's simple. And, and then when you actually get into it, it's incredibly complex. And it became impossible for me to sustain this like attitude where I thought that the only way to take care of a forest was to leave it alone.

[Brad Hutnik]

Was that part of the decision? I mean, you're a young forester and the really cool part about this is you're coming to this. I mean, okay, Greg, we're no spring chickens, right?

We'll just, we'll just leave it at that. You're not buying green bananas anymore. Let's just put it that way, right?

Like, cause you don't know because anyways, but you're coming to this at a fairly young age too, right? Like a lot of us have to take a long time to get to it. So it's really cool that you get to that.

Did that influence like your decision to write the book or to talk about this in any way?

[Ethan Tapper]

Yeah, it did. I mean, I think, I mean, everything did. It was sort of a, the whole thing kind of came out of nowhere where we're really what I was finding was that, you know, across like the arc of my career, as I now see it, looking back, I really, in those early days, I got really excited about first, I got really excited when I was in school to learn about like forest ecology.

And then once I started working as a forester versus a consulting forester in the Adirondacks and then in Vermont, I got really excited about like the logistics, you know, and, and the, the operations, like, how do we actually make this happen? How do we work with these loggers to implement these prescriptions on these forests? You know, with all of these operational realities that we have to deal with, I got more pulled in that direction from, you know, thinking about forest primarily about restoring and ecosystems and more about like this, this operation of forestry.

And then I became a service forester in Vermont. We call them County foresters. I became the Chittenden County forester for the Vermont department of forest parks and recreation, which I did for eight years.

And, and that I feel like allowed me to sort of like find the good middle ground between those two things where I was like, I, I think I understand these logistics and these operations pretty well. And I think I understand forest ecology pretty well. So now how do we utilize these tools that we have to affect positive changes in forest ecology, right?

How do we utilize these loggers, these mills, these markets, these, all of these, you know, pieces and parts to affect positive change from an ecological perspective, you know, right. Of course, as well as producing resources. So that, you know, now I see that whole process as being like pretty important leading me back to where I am now.

But, but I have to tell you that the process of writing the book itself, I, you know, which I still have like kind of like imposter syndrome stuff about who am I to write a book about all this stuff. And the truth is that when I started writing the book, I wasn't trying to write a book. I was just really noticing how frequently the work that we do to take care of forests is misunderstood.

And I wanted to sort of tell a different story about how actually, you know, not just leaving for us alone, but taking action could be these like profound acts of compassion. And I wanted to tell that story. What I would now say is like a love story about what it means to care for a forest, what it means to love a forest at this moment in time.

And I, I had this time period for me, which was the first hour that I'm awake in the morning, 5 to 6 AM. And I used to use that time to like fire off a lot of emails, you know, and I would do all this office. I'd be like, I'm so good at GIS at five o'clock in the morning.

You know, I'm so good at sending emails at five o'clock in the morning. And then I was like, you know what, I'm going to save that time all for myself. And I figured out that it was also a really good time for writing.

And so I started to write from five to 6 AM every day. And it just became this practice, which is just like a neat way to start the day. I'd just be drinking my coffee.

I'd write for an hour, no pressure. I wasn't trying to write a book. I was just trying to write for an hour.

If I was trying to write a book, I think I would have never even started. And I just did that every day for six years. And then, you know, had a pretty good draft, sold it to a publisher.

And I was like, this baby's going to be out by the end of the week. And then they said, your book will be out in two years. And that brought us to September of last year.

So it's just, it just sort of happened. I don't know. It's one of these things is honestly, a lot of parallels between that and this process of stewardship that we do, where a lot of times you're not trying actively to like do the whole thing at once.

Right. You're just like, well, what are we going to do today? What are we going to do this year?

You know? And then you look back and you're like, it just adds up.

[Greg Edge]

It reminds me of that saying, Brad, that you like to quote about the foresters who practice little, write a lot. Oh yeah. And the foresters who practice a lot, write a little, don't write very much.

So it's kind of the, like the best foresters I've known are the ones that do what you said, Ethan, they, they learn the logistical stuff.

They get it down. They really get it and think about how to do it. But then they think about like how to communicate that to the landowners that they're working with.

And they really combine those things really well. And I can think of a handful of foresters. I really admire that do that.

Well, I would say none of them, right though. Like none of them, none of them put that, those lessons down in paper. And so, so that's what I think is unique about this.

[Brad Hutnik]

It struck me. And I've seen something similar where you see foresters who are efficient and I, maybe this is just what I've noticed. You see people who are efficient and then maybe they're thoughtful.

And then maybe at the end, they're mindful. Like they kind of finally like put it all together. And, and again, it's kind of cool because you did it like, you know, when you're young and you can still talk about it and you have these ways that you can still grow with it, which is really, really cool.

[Ethan Tapper]

Yeah. And I mean, you learn stuff all the time. I think one of the things that I tell people about this process of stewardship all, all the time, constantly with landowners that I work with and folks in the general public, I think one of the big misunderstandings about stewardship is that we just, it's like this process of finding like the right answer, you know, finding the right thing to do and then just doing that.

Whereas what it really is, is just this endless process. You'll never be done. Right.

And hopefully you'll never be done learning as well. And I think that we need to, it's really important that we level set that or, or the landowners that we work with and for the general public, because if they think that we are going to do something and solve a problem that in forests, they are, they are wrong. I mean, there's basically there, basically that's not what it is.

That's not what we're actually doing. And so we need to, we need to do a better job of explaining what we're actually trying to do, which is the process, not the solution.

[Greg Edge]

Yeah. And like you said, a lot of times with landowners, it's kind of just getting them started with a little thing and then it just builds over time and they have to realize, you know, it's going to take that time.

And maybe we'll talk a little bit more about private landowners.

[Ethan Tapper]

Well, and I want to just, just a couple of things about, about communication that sort of fed into this whole thing. You know, speaking of talking to landowners, I, when I was a service forester, I had the privilege of, you know, walking in the woods with thousands of landowners leading hundreds of public events. And one of the things I picked up on early on, and I think any, any forester who's listening to this will, will know what I'm talking about.

You can say something to a person and you can just see in their eyes that they don't get it. It doesn't resonate with them.

They don't understand it, whatever that it didn't click. And then you can say that same thing in a little bit of a different way. And boom, they got it.

And, and I think, so it's an interesting thing because it's like, if we, if we aren't being like thoughtful about how we communicate stuff to people, it's the same as not telling them at all. Because it, it doesn't resonate with them.

It doesn't click. They don't get it. And, and so I started to think about, as I walk with landowners, every time I was walking with an individual landowner, family, couple, it was like practice.

I was like, how can I talk about, how can I explain this stuff that we do in terms that a normal person can understand? And that makes sense to them. And that resonates with them.

And then I would bring those lessons to the public events that I would do. And now I bring those lessons to the writing that I do. And also to the social media work that I do, because, you know, I think it's sometimes it boggles my mind, how the work that we do as stewards of these ecosystems, where we're like, we're caring for these forests amidst all of these profound challenges of this moment.

And at the same time balancing all of these people objectives. And at the same time, like dealing with all of these, like other objectives, wildlife and biodiversity protection, all of these different things, we're producing local renewable resources from a living system. And how could that not be something that we, that everyone loves?

It doesn't make any sense to me. And the answer in my mind is that people haven't been told the value of our work in a way that they can understand. And that's partially on us because we're the good guys and we're doing this work that is absolutely wonderful.

And then it's, and then it's just up to us to explain the nuanced reality of the work that we're doing to people.

[Brad Hutnik]

I liked one of the nuances you used Greg and I were talking about this earlier. The, I think you, you described foresters as disturbance ecologists, which seems like it's that little way of like repackaging it. And you go, Oh, I kind of get it versus a forester.

It could be a logger, you know, for some people, but when you start to think about it different ways, or kind of package things up or present it like you do with say Instagram or, or some of the other outlets that all of a sudden things can click and they can make a difference.

[Ethan Tapper]

I think of a lot of it as building trust. And this is actually one of the real benefits of social media is it allows you to connect with people in a way where they really feel like they know you. And they do, they do.

And they don't, I actually, now that I have a big enough following on social media, one of the weird experiences that I have is people that I don't know in all kinds of different places, just coming up to me and going, Hey, Ethan.

[Brad Hutnik]

Oh yeah.

[Ethan Tapper]

And literally talking to me like someone that they know don't know. And they do, they know me. I just don't know them.

It's very deeply strange, but it's a, it's an opportunity for you to like really develop a sense of show people who you are, you know, and what your values are. And I do the same thing in the book. Like the first part of the book, I'm not really challenging people, the reader that much.

I'm just trying to, you know, talk about some forest ecology stuff and to build trust, to show them who I am and how much I care about these ecosystems and how I've dedicated my life to them. And then in the second half of the book, you know, and I go deeper and talk about some stuff that's harder for people to understand. I'm killing deer, I'm working with whole tree equipment loggers, and I'm spraying herbicide on invasive plants, you know, and I think that the trick of it all, and I do this mirror, the same thing in my communication, my talks and my walks.

And in social media is you, you develop a sense of trust where you, you show them who you are. And then you show them something that's a little bit harder to understand, right? You go from being just like, this is a flower.

I like to be in like, I sprayed herbicide on this invasive plant.

[Brad Hutnik]

I just killed it.

[Ethan Tapper]

It forces them to confront the fact that maybe these counterintuitive, difficult to understand things that you're doing are not like antithetical to the values that you have. They're actually an expression of those values, right? They're actually, this is, this is actually an expression of love and care and compassion.

And I think that time and time again, we find that, uh, trust is, is probably even a better indicator of having like positive public sentiment than the belief of the public that you are competent, their knowledge of the science, like their ability to trust you is, is I believe the most important thing. And so that, that personal connection goes a really long way. And so I try to do that in everything I do is to build that trust.

[Greg Edge]

Yeah. Brad and I are talking about, that's like a really common theme within your book about sort of this dichotomy between as foresters, we're disturbance ecologists and sometimes we kill things. We like to joke around with Tony D'Amato sometimes about calling it morticulture because, you know, there's a lot of death involved in that kind of with other people's ideas of how you bring life to something.

I think Brad, you said, you noted a line that Ethan used a bittersweet compromises about. You know, sometimes you have to see the value in maybe killing something, herbiciding something, cutting something and what, what that would bring in terms of the good end of that.

[Ethan Tapper]

Oh yeah. So the way, and this is also, so here's a, a simple shift in the way that we talk about things based on that, that is profound when I'm cutting a tree or I'm, I'm showing folks where a logger is cutting a tree, we're doing some login or, or whatever. You know, a lot of times what we do is we talk about why this is okay, why it should be acceptable.

And instead I talk about why it's beautiful and why it's, it's powerful and important. And I'm like, we're not taking away anything. We're building something, right?

It's not about these trees that are going anywhere. It's about the opportunity that we have to create a forest that is so much more powerful of life that is so much more diverse and resilient, you know, that has habitat for so many more different living things. That's what we're creating.

And that simple change. And this is, I think this is an especially powerful narrative when we're talking about killing introduced plants, you know, being like, it's not about the Japanese Barbary that I'm killing. It's about all of the living things that can't be here.

And the fact that now they're going to be allowed to live here again. You know, in the book, I talk about this spring ephemerals, the wildflowers that I knew, you know, I had, uh, for the listener, I had this 30 acre area that was pure Japanese Barbary, uh, this really virulent invasive plant of it. You all have it.

[Greg Edge]

Yeah, we got it.

[Ethan Tapper]

So this was a stand waist high, pure Japanese Barbary. And you know, the way I talked about it was not like, here is this evil plant that I want to kill. Uh, the way I talked about it is I know that for thousands of years, the understory of this forest has been a garden of spring ephemeral wildflowers, these beautiful plants that everybody who loves forest loves, right.

And also have these really specialized relationships, obligate insects and are just these amazing organisms. And I could tell that for thousands of years, the understory of the forest had just been all spring ephemerals in April and they couldn't be there anymore, right? Because suddenly this new plan had been introduced that totally outcompeted all of them and made it impossible for them to exist there anymore.

The subtle shift is I'm not killing an invader. I am planting ephemerals, right? I am providing an opportunity for these amazing plants to exist here.

And that subtle shift is a really profoundly different way of talking about our work. And we're doing the same thing with almost everything that we do. Right.

So I had a, the experience of when I was a County Forester, I've managed these community forests, like municipal forests of public lands, but managed on a very small scale. And you know, what I found was that I had so many more better outcomes. If I would, instead of starting the walk, you know, on a logging job at the log landing, and we have to talk about, there's this, you know, the skitters warming up and there's logs piled there and whatever we would start in the woods.

And basically we would like make an argument for what we're creating, just like the work that we're doing solely on ecological grounds, you know, and just talk about the fact that we're creating forests that are more like old growth forests and that we're creating forests that have more structural diversity and a better bird habitat and creating habitats for certain species of concern and creating a forest that's more resilient and a changing climate, all these other things. And then in the walk on the log landing.

And so then instead of like, I bring people up onto this log landing and it's this jarring thing for a lot of people, they're like, Oh my God, with the equipment and the diesel and the, you know, the dead trees, uh, we've already, you know, gone through this whole process of talking about why we're doing what we're doing in the woods, independent of all that stuff. And then we ended on the log landing and I say, and as if it couldn't get any better at the same time that we're doing all of these things, we're generating local renewable resources, which is something that has global biodiversity and human rights benefits that supports your neighbors, that keeps people warm, that keeps people dry, that provides all of these amazing resources that we need to live our lives. And that's a really different tone. Like we spend the first, we build the trust and then we like talk about this thing.

That's more difficult to understand and it puts it in a totally different context.

[Greg Edge]

It's kind of like what you said. You really, you can tell, you've really thought about like, how can you get the messages more effectively to the people? And I haven't thought about that, just the way you might walk a woods with somebody might affect that, you know, like consciously think about, okay, where am I going to start with this person and where I'm going to end with it?

That's a really neat way to think about it.

[Brad Hutnik]

I've had that same thing. And almost you come off as an apologist. If you start the first way, as opposed to you kind of leading, I'm almost like on a tour, like you're going through until this is where we're going to end.

And so that's, that's really, I love that. That's, that's really perceptive.

[Ethan Tapper]

Yeah. And it's also like, it's gotta be the energy of like, this is something I want. This is a celebration of life.

This is something I want to show you. It's exciting. You know, it can't just be like, I'm doing this, you know, I gotta do this walk because someone told me I gotta do a walk or I get in trouble and I don't really want to talk to you, but I guess I got to explain, you know, people can send stuff like that.

And then the, the there's, I mean, there's a million other like little nuances. I would say from the social media side, what I found is that you also just like, can't talk about the thing that you want to talk about all the time. You like talk, like most of the videos that I make are just about a bird that I like, you know, or an understory plant that I think is cool or an element of some element of forest ecology that they're really nuanced, tricky messages that I have to talk about, about stewardship, cutting trees or whatever, you know, those pop up.

And, you know, I do it every couple of weeks, I'll say something and I'm always like, Oh man, this is it. This is it for me. They're all going to hate Ethan after I tell them how I used herbicide to kill this plant, you know, and, and then every, every single time that I think that everybody's fine, nobody cares.

And, you know, and mostly people are just like, Oh cool. I didn't realize you could do that. And I think that, that the reaction that I get is in large part because I've spent the time to be like, they're like, who is this guy?

He's just spent the last month, just telling us how much he likes birds. Right. You know, he's not just like a timber hog.

He's not just like someone who doesn't who hates trees and wants to cut them all down. It's you just got to set the table.

[Brad Hutnik]

Yeah. That's cool. Does that even work on, so I'm just imagining the experiences I've had.

How about the, how about the worst of your degraded sites? Like you still take the landowner, you still use that same process or is it a little more nuanced? Like, well, we might have to, you know, do some more.

Cause you know, like a lot of times like I I'm thinking Greg, some of the sites we see for degraded are like really degraded. Like you, maybe you don't have a lot of good stuff that'll respond. And maybe it's a lot more of slipping into that restoration, silviculture kind of stuff, like reintroducing things.

[Ethan Tapper]

Yeah, I think so. I mean, that's sort of the story I tell with bear Island in a way, right. You know, there were, there were still crop trees at bear Island to find and stuff like that.

But really, you know, my impression of it was that it was one of the most degraded forest I'd ever been to, you know, it wasn't like, you know, a site of a strip mine or, you know, a hunt, uh, invasive plant jungle of like pure buckthorn or something, but it was, it had been pretty brutally high graded a couple of times. I, when, when I walked through it the first time, the story I would tell is that, uh, I remember standing on this Ridge and being like, something's weird about this forest. And I couldn't put my finger on it.

And then I realized that I hadn't seen any healthy trees. And I, and then I started walking along and I was like, nah, that's not a thing. And then I was like, no, I can't find a healthy tree period, any species, no healthy trees.

And it's just what happens when you just, you know, there was just a, you know, a 10 inch diameter limit cut 30 years ago and probably a couple other ones before that. And it just created a forest that was mostly a monoculture of diseased beach trees and all the big, nice Oak got slicked off. And, and there we were here over population.

And then, you know, had this big area of these introduced plants, no close out on any of the roads. So all the roads were at three foot deep ruts in them and we're actively eroding.

[Greg Edge]

And you said, I'm going to buy this property.

[Ethan Tapper]

Well, yeah. I mean, so what actually happened, I tell a simplified version of this story sometimes, but what actually happened was that I went there once and I was like, forget this place. And then I took here in the Northeast, some, some folks have been running Charlie Levesque and some other folks have been running this thing called the silviculture Institute, which is really cool.

They did, they've done a bunch of different modules and different systems. And I happened to go to two of them. I went to the spruce for a module, which is an ordinal main Bob Seymour.

And then I went to a pine Oak Hemlock one that was in like Southern New Hampshire. The, my forest is kind of, kind of pine Oak Hemlock. And a lot of the stuff that was talked about in both of those, obviously very different systems was restoration, silviculture and about like how you actually bring a forest back.

And it reminded me of this forest that I had walked and kind of written off. And I started to think about it and it was still, it had been listed for two years and it was still on there and it was already below what a, what forest should have been of that acreage where it was. And I was like, geez, um, I, you know, it's still there.

And I call actually called up my old boss who sold forest land, real estate, told him about the property. The, the, the story is I was like, but can I ask you some questions? I want to, there's this piece of land.

I'm thinking about making an offer. How do I do this? And, and he was like, let me ask you some questions about it.

Is there any timber on it? And I said, no, no. And he said, any real estate potential?

No. Is the access good? No.

Could it be a sugarbush? Any sugar maple on it? No.

And we kept on going down the line. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. And eventually he said, well, Ethan, this place sounds terrible.

Just offer him like nothing. And don't be afraid of hurting their feelings is what he said. 

So that, you know, it's 175 acres. It was listed for like $225,000. I offered him one 10 and then we ended up at like one 50.

So I was like still not fully expecting to buy it. Right. But then ended up getting the price down so low that it just kind of happened.

And then I was like, geez, I'm, you know, standing on that log landing, literally surrounded by trash, just bags of trash and tires and hydraulic hoses and cables. And, you know, the track of an X excavator and a back end of a skidder, half buried in the ground, all the topsoil pushed off, ruts going in every direction. And I was like, well, here we are.

[Greg Edge]

So work begins. 

[Ethan Tapper]

Yeah. The work begins and it's actually pretty remarkable.

Like, you know, I was up at the, that same place, you know, built a house there way down, not up what I call the clearing, but way down by the town road. You know, I was up there today and it's just this beautiful meadow, young orchard, all these heirloom apple trees and chestnuts, cherries and pears and plums. And big pond where there was just like a skidder, wallow and, you know, harvesting big bunches of elderberries from these elderberry plants that I, I saw when they were two inches tall, you know, volunteers and I just been weeding around them for five years.

And now they're eight feet tall and they're a continuous patch, probably half an acre. 

Yeah. It's, it's pretty remarkable to see that healing process. One of the funny things about it though, is that going back to this concept of like the incremental nature of everything, I wish that I had had the foresight to take a picture in those early days. Yeah.

I didn't, I didn't think I was, it was, you know, my work was going to amount to any, I didn't, it wouldn't have never occurred to me to just take a picture of a landing covered in trash or like, or like a, you know, 30 acre patch of barberry, but that would be a pretty cool picture to have now. You know, cause it's like the, you know, where that trash was, is this beautiful meadow, where that barberry was, is this awesome forest with this diverse native understory.

It's not a barbarian site.

[Greg Edge]

It reminds me of a story. My old supervisor told me that he and another forester walked this property with this landowner and it was the same situation. It was a new landowner and they got through the other side.

And the one forester said, you ain't got fill in the expletive. And so that was probably not the best forester bedside manner for the landowner. And I know like I was really interested in a couple of stories in your book about just talking with landowners about when they may not see the potential in something you met with a landowner named Sarah after her, after a windstorm. After a windstorm.

But, or as in this case about what about talking to a landowner that, it is a highly degraded site. Like how do you get them to see that potential that maybe you saw in Bear Island?

[Ethan Tapper]

Yeah. What I say is that I really, like in those early days, I really saw Bear Island like as a symbol of everything that was wrong with the world, you know, this forest that had every problem that a forest could have. And now I really see it as a symbol of hope and a symbol of what's possible because I've seen this transformation.

And the best example is the stand that's right above my house. Where, you know, when I got here, I remember walking through that stand and there were these skid trails going straight up and down the hill, deep skidder, that's just eroding. I was walking through there and I was like, what am I going to do?

Cut all the trees? You know, there's nothing here. Right.

And there were some areas on this land, by the way, the first thing I did, I read about in the book was create these big patch cuts in the area, these areas that were literally zero healthy trees. But I was like, what am I going to do? There's nothing here.

And, and so I, you know, every year I run an excavator for a week and, you know, run an excavator, rebuilt the trails, closed out those unstable trails, built better trails. And then I just started doing crop tree release at the time with my, my Ford tractor with a army winch. And, you know, you would just like find a crop tree and I'd be like, Oh, look at that, you know, and release it.

And then you'd be like, Oh, there's another one. And then go find the other one. And it really showed me, especially the power of, of crop tree release and you know, how that can really help you kind of shift your focus from focusing on everything that's wrong to like focusing on what's there.

It changed not just like in the forest in the way that it like gave those individual trees more room to grow. I walk through that stand with people with foresters and they're like, Oh, this is a nice, healthy stand, you know? And I'm like, well, I'm very glad to hear that because if you had walked here with me seven years ago, you would have said, what are we going to do?

Cut all the trees, you know? And, and so that, I think that for a lot of landowners, usually in the most degraded stands, that's what I'll start to do is I'll start thinking about, let's go find us some crop trees and like build around, build from there. Cause there's almost in any forest, if you look close enough, there's almost always something that's cool to save.

And like, let's start rather than being like, you know, maybe we end up starting over in a lot of these areas and we end up cutting tons of trees and big patch cuts or whatever. But I think it's so much more helpful to start from the good stuff that's there. And then you're like, how can we take this little thing, this little area that you see here, that's amazing and let's make the whole forest like that.

Or let's take these, how do we make these degraded areas like this area?

Well, what we do is those trees aren't there. And so we plant them or those trees are there, but they're being competed with by less healthy trees. And so we release those healthy trees by cutting those less healthy trees.

Or this is an area where those trees are never going to regenerate. So we're going to create these pockets of regeneration and, and start from the ground up.

[Greg Edge]

It's kind of like what you said is come at it from the positive angle.

[Ethan Tapper]

It really does make a big difference. You know, I think people in my experience are very overwhelmed with all the scary negative stuff. I mean, it's like, you just kind of wins here where we're talking about, you know, beach leaf disease now.

And it's like you can't keep loading these, all of these different scary things that people have to think about onto them and expect them to still be chipper and want to get out in the woods and go do stuff. You have to sort of like really keeping, trying to keep stuff as positive as you can, I think really makes folks better stewards, you know, because instead of just throwing up their hands and being like, I give up, they they're still out there doing stuff.

[Brad Hutnik]

Yeah. How do you approach it? I know a lot of times, like as foresters, we can see like the, Oh, this is what I got to, or this is what we should do.

And this is going to get us to that, you know, the, the promise land of what this thing is going to look like. But then oftentimes we're like, well, I think if we could do this, we're moving in the right direction. It's almost like, you're not quite like, you don't have certainty in that, you know, you might be going in the right direction, but you might, maybe you won't be, or maybe you'll have to change things up.

And I think about Greg, like Oak management, like we do lots of stuff. We do everything right. And then things don't turn out quite right.

You could be working in a stand forever and then finally get lucky and get the Oak that comes in. So how do you, do you, uh, how do you process that for your own purposes and maybe with landowners you work with?

[Ethan Tapper]

I think it's really important to set clear expectations at the beginning of anything. You know, I, I think one of the things that is actually can be a little bit this disarming and in a positive way is to embrace the uncertainty in our communications and to talk about how it's actually pretty amazing that, you know, yeah, sure. Our goal is we'd like to restore some Oak, but how amazing is it that we're going to just like create this disturbance and let the forest regenerate and we'll see what happens.

And there is some uncertainty. And if we don't get Oak, what we'll do is we'll plant some Oak, you know, and protect it from deer. And, you know, there are other things that we can do, but, but to sort of like talk about how, if we, if we set ourselves up to be like, this is what we're exactly doing.

And this is the exact outcome that is required. We're just setting ourselves up for failure and people getting disillusioned and being like, you know, you've all had this happen where they're like, you're trying to explain some work that you want to do to somebody. And they're like, well, there was this one time.

When a Forester said this was going to happen and it didn't happen. If people just have one little experience like that, it can be an excuse for them to, you know, swear off our profession or forest management or these practices forever. And so I think what we need to do is, is to actually like head on acknowledge the uncertainty and the process.

And that's how we, you know, don't get caught seeming like we have no idea what we're doing. Cause we do know what we're doing, right. We just are operating in this incredibly complex environment.

[Greg Edge]

Ethan, you mentioned that, you know, you really were targeting some of this towards maybe Forester's clients, but there were some parts in the book that I like, I could relate to as a Forester. One of them was, you talked about marking your first timber sale at Bear Island. So actually marking a timber sale on your property.

[Ethan Tapper]

Yeah. It feels so different.

[Greg Edge]

And yeah. And I don't unfortunately own woodlands, but I've marked for a family and friends. And it's always like, there's this pressure, right.

To, to get it right. To do, to do good work on that. Can you just speak just briefly about like what that felt like for you on your own property, as opposed to someone else's?

[Ethan Tapper]

Yeah. And the first project I did, so basically, you know, short description of what I do here at Bear Island is in 2017, I brought in a whole tree crew and I did like 15 acres of patch cuts. Biggest one is three acres.

And, and then I own a Timberjack 230E cable skidder. And then I do basically more light touch management in between the patches. So I just had the loggers cut the patch cuts and the patch cuts were, I did them in August on an acorn year, left every healthy tree of every species.

So I probably ended up with like 30 square feet of basal area within the patches, which are mostly Oak trees. And then I planted, you know, just into the ground with a stick, tens of thousands of acorns that were just, you know, they were laying on the ground, pushed them in the ground, which cause I heard that you could get like 50% better sprouting if you did it that way. And, and yeah, a lot of those patches were like a hundred percent diseased beach and I needed to remove the entire understory.

So that's one of the reasons why I went with the whole tree. So, but no cutting by the whole tree crew between the patches. So yeah, that first it was really, it was only, it just happened that it had been kind of a wet summer and I could get this, these loggers to come and cut the worst job of their life on my land because there was nowhere else to go.

Yeah. And I had realized that it was an acorn year and it was a month after I bought the land and I saw that, you know, those grapple skidders feller bunch are coming out of the land. And I was like, Oh, this is a big deal.

You know, I had put that kind of equipment on other people's land countless times and, you know, and just been like, yeah, well, you know, this is just the equipment and it's just exciting. And, and it felt really different. And I think it made me a better forester.

By the way, running, running that timberjack skidder is also, I feel like maybe a lot better forester, but this made me a better forester because now when I'm getting landowners ready for, you know, for what's going to happen, whether it be big equipment or small, I really take a lot of time to like, to let them know what it's going to feel like and what it's going to be like. And, and that goes a long way.

[Greg Edge]

So it's given you kind of just that different perspective, almost like walking in their shoes, even though you have, you know, a different level of knowledge than they have. So for them, it's probably even more scary in a way.

[Ethan Tapper]

Well, yeah, yeah. They don't have any frame of reference a lot of times. And I'm just like, this is what it's going to feel like.

This is going to be a big deal and it's going to feel big. Oh, and by the way, just as an aside, you know, talking about these loggers having to come to bear out and cut the worst job of their life. So I know markets are different everywhere, but, um, these loggers cut, uh, 10 loads of firewood, 10 loads of pull 30 loads of chips, one load of locks.

It was not, it was not, you know, it kept their equipment moving. It kept their employees there, but it wasn't, they weren't making money on it. I wouldn't have been able to get them to come and do that probably on a different year.

 They're out. We don't have a lot here, but it is dry.

You know, that's, that's our, that's our asset.

[Greg Edge]

Yeah. So this is really, really interesting conversation. And just, I really appreciate your perspective.

Some things that I haven't thought about as a Forester. So kind of looking back on that, is there one piece of advice, Ethan, if you could go back and give yourself as a new Forester, starting out, what would that be?

[Ethan Tapper]

I don't know. It's hard to know because I just feel like for me, I feel very blessed that I've got, you know, gotten to do everything. I've gotten to do and, you know, yeah.

And now continue. I feel, sometimes I think back on all these experiences that I've had and I'm like, they all kind of prepared me in some way for what I have now. I mean, I'm thinking back about being a young Forester and I did develop some unhealthy work habits.

So to, you know, I basically, by the time I got out of school, I was like, this is what's going to happen. I'm going to be a Forester. Yeah.

And you know, just spamming everybody in Vermont and everybody said no. And then finally someone said yes. And I could be a subcontractor, not an employee.

And so I was like, well, you're going to hire me someday. You know, watch this. And so I used to, my practice was I used to figure out how much work they expected me to do in a day and try to do double every day.

And it was just a, just driving myself like a maniac and just, you know, trying to get up earlier than everybody and stay later than everybody and go harder than everybody. And, you know, in retrospect, I don't know that that was necessary. And, and still today I have a hard time pulling myself back.

Sometimes I would thought of it when I was self-employed, it was going to be easier, but it turns out it's just way harder. Cause every hour is potentially a work hour. 

Yeah. And then the other part of it was I had this funny experience of like, you know, being a Forester, but I didn't grow up around login and, and I had all of this, you know, I, I played a lot of pretend with the loggers, you know, and I wanted them to respect me and other Foresters to respect me and to think that I was like them. And, and I wasn't, I didn't have the same background as a lot of them.

And, and then, you know, when eventually I had been doing this long enough, we got to know each other well enough that they, you know, I was unmasked or whatever. It didn't matter at all. Nobody cared.

And it turned out that I just wasn't given anybody enough credit. So I think, you know, my advice would be to, to young, the young Foresters out there to be competent and, and be respectful and, you know, really have a lot of deference for the folks that have been doing this work a long time. And then also just to be yourself.

And, and if you're, you know, and, and refuse to allow people to write you off by just doing a great job and just being there and being a great learner and being egoless and just soaking it all up, that, that, that would be my advice.

[Brad Hutnik]

That's fantastic, Ethan. I know a lot of people in my family are going to be receiving copies of your book for, for Christmas. 

[Ethan Tapper]

Oh, great.

[Brad Hutnik]

So, and I would encourage everyone else. This is your, everyone will be getting this episode beginning of December. So, Hey, this is, I think a fantastic book, especially for people trying to figure out or trying to communicate like maybe a little bit more about forestry than what we can easily say.

Like you say it very well in the book. It's hard for us sometimes to maybe say these same things. So it's really well done.

[Ethan Tapper]

Thank you so much. 

[Greg Edge]

Yes. Thank you very much, Ethan.

It's great to see you again. And good luck on the rest of your busy schedule here.

[Ethan Tapper]

You bet. My, my pleasure being on this podcast.

[Brad Hutnik]

When the next book comes out, we'll, we'll make it a three-peat.

[Ethan Tapper]

Heck yeah. I can't wait. 

[Greg Edge]

Yep. Take care. 

[Ethan Tapper]

Thank you.

[Brad Hutnik]

That was fantastic. I don't often say I'm stoked, but I, I think that is, that gets you going. And we need to get on this writing thing, Greg, then you know what?

You should write a book.

[Greg Edge]

I think you should work more on that silviculture poetry. Giving, but taking, mycorrhizae.

[Brad Hutnik]

Well, I don't know. It's good. I, you'll see the wisdom in it.

After a couple, after you've self-medicated a little bit, it'll be, it'll be much, much better to you. Thanks for listening to today's episode of Silvicast. If you have ideas for future episodes or a question for the Dropbox, please let us know.

You can reach us at UW Stevens Point's Wisconsin Forestry Center by emailing wfc at uwsp.edu. Feel free to include a sound file of your question or comment. If you like, we learn best when we wrestle with questions. So please keep them coming.

[Greg Edge]

And take care everyone. And as always, thanks to our team, Susan Barrett, our Editor-in-Chief, Joe Rogers, our IT Master, theme music by Paul Frater, and of course, UW Stevens Point's Wisconsin Forestry Center.