Ethan Tapper is a forester and author from Bolton, Vermont.

Bear Island Forestry was founded by Ethan Tapper in 2024. Prior to starting Bear Island Forestry, Ethan served as the Chittenden County Forester for the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation from 2016 - 2024. As the Chittenden County Forester, Ethan advised private landowners, municipalities, conservation organizations, foresters and loggers on the responsible stewardship of privately-owned forestland, managed over 4,500 acres of Community Forests, administered Vermont’s Use Value Appraisal (“Current Use”) program, wrote a monthly column for community newspapers and a quarterly column in Northern Woodlands magazine and lead dozens of public events in Vermont and throughout New England that reached thousands of people each year. Ethan is a Vermont-licensed forester and an Audubon-endorsed forester, and has received numerous awards and distinctions for his work — most notably, he was named the Northeast-Midwest State Foresters Alliance’s Forester of the Year in 2021, and the American Tree Farm System’s National Outstanding Inspector (forester) of the Year in 2024.

Ethan grew up in Saxtons River, a rural village in Vermont’s Connecticut River Valley. After graduating high school in 2007, Ethan accepted a scholarship to attend the University of Vermont. After two semesters at UVM, still unsure of what he was interested in studying, he left school to go on a six-month wilderness expedition in Vermont and New Hampshire. Following this transformative experience, Ethan spent the following year in the woods: working as a wilderness guide, living on a primitive homestead in rural Maine and apprenticing with a draft horse logger in Maine. After nearly two years, Ethan needed to return to UVM or else lose his scholarship. He picked forestry out a list of degrees on a whim, as he says: “because it had the word ‘forest’ in it.” He completed his Bachelor of Science in Forestry degree from the University of Vermont in 2012. After graduating from UVM, Ethan worked as a consulting forester on family forests and industrial timberland in Vermont, New Hampshire, New York and Maine, before becoming the Chittenden County Forester in 2016.

Ethan started Bear Island Forestry in 2024 with a belief that he could do more good for people, forests, biodiversity and conservation in the private sector. Bear Island Forestry is grounded in an ecological forestry approach — the idea that forest management should seek to mimic and restore natural processes — managing forests “like they manage themselves.” Ethan sees forest management as a vital and powerful tool to care for and restore forests, to protect biodiversity, and to build a more abundant, just and beautiful world. Ethan is dedicated to promoting this reimagining of forestry both in the work of Bear Island Forestry and in his writing and public outreach.

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 take care of them. He spent the next five years working on the book each day from 5:00 - 6:00 AM, shaping it into what it eventually became: “a tender and fearless reimagining of forests and our relationship to them.” In 2023, How to Love a Forest was acquired by Minneapolis-based publisher Broadleaf Books. How to Love a Forest is available for Pre-order now! It will be published in September, 2024.

In his spare time, Ethan writes, cares for Bear Island — his 175-acre conserved homestead, orchard and working forest — maintains YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook channels and performs with his 10-piece punk band, The Bubs.

Learn more about Ethan at EthanTapper.com!