Ethan Tapper is a forester and author from Vermont.

Ethan Tapper is a nationally-recognized forester, bestselling author, and content creator from Vermont. His first book — How to Love a Forest: The Bittersweet Work of Tending a Changing World — was published in September, 2024.

Ethan grew up in Saxtons River, a rural village in Vermont’s Connecticut River Valley. After graduating high school, Ethan accepted a scholarship to attend the University of Vermont, but — still unsure about what he wanted to study — left after two semesters to go on a six-month wilderness expedition in Vermont and New Hampshire. Following this transformative experience, Ethan spent the next few years living and working in the woods: working as a wilderness guide, living on a primitive homestead and apprenticing with a draft horse logger. Ethan eventually returned the University of Vermont to study forestry, completing his degree in 2012. After graduating from UVM, Ethan worked as a consulting forester on forests in Vermont, New Hampshire, New York and Maine, before becoming the Chittenden County Forester in 2016.

As the Chittenden County Forester for the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, Ethan advised private landowners, municipalities, conservation organizations, foresters and loggers on the responsible stewardship of privately-owned forestland, managed Community Forests, administered Vermont’s Use Value Appraisal (“Current Use”) program in the County, wrote a monthly column for community newspapers and a quarterly column in Northern Woodlands magazine and led hundreds of public events. In this role, Ethan received numerous awards and distinctions — including being named the Northeast-Midwest State Foresters Alliance’s Forester of the Year, and the American Tree Farm Systems National Outstanding Inspector (forester) of the Year. Ethan left this role to start his own consulting forestry business, Bear Island Forestry, in 2024.

In 2017, Ethan bought the 175-acre forest in Bolton, Vermont that he now calls “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 crystalize many of the ideas that would eventually become How to Love a Forest. Today, Ethan spends countless hours working at Bear Island, performing the countless bittersweet and beautiful acts required to help this forest “reach towards wholeness again.” While he once saw Bear Island as a symbol of “everything that was wrong with the world,” now, he sees it as “a symbol of what is possible, a symbol of hope.” Ethan donated a conservation easement on Bear Island in 2022 — protecting this forest forever.

Ethan started writing How to Love a Forest in 2016, after realizing that there was no book that captured his understanding of what forests are, how they work, and what it means to take care of them. He wrote the book over the following six years, one hour at time — from 5:00-6:00 AM each day. It was published by Broadleaf Books in September, 2024. Since being published, How to Love a Forest has sold thousands of copies, been named to several bestseller lists and has been endorsed by prominent nature writers including Bill McKibben, Doug Tallamy, and Ben Goldfarb.

In 2024, Ethan also started social media channels on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook — using the handle @HowToLoveAForest — and now has more than 75,000 followers. He produces hundreds of videos about natural history, ecology, forest stewardship and more each year.

In 2025, Ethan teamed up with illustrator Frances Cannon to publish Willow and the Storm, a children’s book about forest ecology, resilience, regeneration, and the end of human life. Learn more about Willow and the Storm here!

Today, Ethan continues to write every morning, as well as running his businesses — Bear Island Forestry, Bear Island Consulting and Bear Island Maple — managing his 175-acre working forest, orchard, homestead and sugarbush at Bear Island, delivering keynotes and talks across the United States and Canada, creating content for his social media channels, pursuing a graduate degree at the University of Vermont, and performing with his 10-piece punk band, The Bubs.

Learn more about Ethan on his LinkTree!