How can cutting down a tree be a radical act of compassion? This course explores the complex, nuanced, and sometimes contradictory world of ecological forestry. We’ll explore how active management techniques like logging can be used to enhance biodiversity, improve forest health, and heal landscapes impacted by centuries of exploitation. And we’ll see when it’s appropriate to let a resilient forest manage itself.

We’ll spend the weekend visiting several sites in the Green Mountains and Champlain Valley managed by Ethan Tapper, and see examples of successful treatments and key concepts in the ecological forester’s toolbox: forest management for habitat diversity, restoring highgraded forests, mimicking old growth conditions, watershed restoration and erosion control, resilient trail and road design, aggressive management of invasive species from deer to beech to barberry, sugarbush management, cultivating the “necrosphere,” and more. Along the way, we’ll examine the ecological dynamics unfolding at each site, from bedrock to botany to birds.