About Our Guest:

Before Ethan Tapper came into my life, I thought I had a perfectly respectable relationship with forests. I loved them. I walked in them. I felt restored by them. Like many well-meaning people, I assumed the most loving thing one could do for a forest was to simply leave it alone. It felt humble. It felt respectful. It felt… right.

Then Ethan arrived—calm, thoughtful, deeply grounded in both science and lived experience—and gently dismantled that assumption; not with alarmism or scolding, but with clarity and patience.

His way of seeing forests made it suddenly obvious how much I had been missing while thinking I was paying attention. Ethan doesn’t just teach you about forests; he changes how your mind organizes reality. He invites you into a deeper relationship with complexity, time, and responsibility—and once you see the world that way, there’s no going back.

That’s why I invited him back for a second conversation on the Conspiracy of Goodness Podcast, building on our first interview about his extraordinary book, How to Love a Forest: Because so much of what troubles us today—our anxiety, our paralysis, our sense that everything is unraveling—comes from simply skimming the surface of profoundly complex systems and mistaking shallow understanding for truth.

Forests, it turns out, are master teachers in what happens when we slow down…and go deeper.

The Big Tree vs. the Old Tree: An Aha That Changes Everything

Early in our conversation, Ethan raises a distinction that seems simple on the surface but changes everything once it lands: the difference between a big tree and an old tree. Most of us assume they’re the same thing: big means old; old means big. That assumption, however, collapses under even a moment of closer attention: some species grow very quickly and become incredibly large while still relatively young, while other trees can be quite old without ever becoming particularly big compared to other kinds of trees.

What matters is not size, of course, but time. The ecological richness of an old tree—its cavities, complex bark, layered canopy, and accumulated relationships with other living beings—cannot be rushed. You can make a tree grow larger more quickly by removing competition around its roots, but you cannot make it older faster—and it is age, not size, that allows a tree to become a cornerstone of biodiversity. Old trees are living archives, carrying centuries of relationships within their structure. 

That distinction quietly reframes how we understand value. In forests—and perhaps in life more broadly—what looks impressive at first glance may not be what matters most. Depth takes time; complexity requires patience, and some of the most important contributions are invisible to our eye…unless we slow down long enough to notice them.

When a Tree Dies, It Doesn’t End—It Multiplies

One of Ethan’s most transformative teachings challenges our deeply ingrained fear of death and decay. In forests, death is not the opposite of life; it is one of its most generative forces. Ethan describes what ecologists call the perimortem period—the long phase during which a tree is declining, but still very much participating in the life of the forest. Unlike humans, whose dying process is often brief relative to the length of our lives, a tree can be “dying” for centuries.

During that time, a remarkable transformation occurs—or rather, several small ones: Cavities form and become shelter for birds and mammals; fungi move in, breaking down wood into soil; insects arrive, followed by the creatures that feed on them. Nutrients are redistributed as what appears, to the untrained eye, as loss of life, creates an explosion of life-giving interdependence. 

As Ethan beautifully puts it, the tree doesn’t simply die—it becomes decentralized. One life becomes many.

This is not romanticism; it is ecology, and once you understand it, you no longer look at a fallen tree as a problem to be removed, but as evidence of continuity, of generosity, of systems that know how to turn endings into beginnings without panic or waste.

This knowledge actually conflicts with a desire many of us feel instinctually: our preference for forests that look like parks. Tall, evenly spaced trees, open understories, clear sightlines, no weeds, minimal dead wood. Tapper calls this the “cathedral forest,” and it appeals to something ancient in us—perhaps shaped by our evolutionary past in savanna-like landscapes.

Forests, however, are not designed for our comfort. To truly love a forest requires humility: we must relinquish our desire for control and learn to appreciate systems that do not organize themselves around our preferences, because healthy forest ecology has nothing to do with human aesthetics, and what we often describe as “messy” is what ecologists call complexity—and the foundation of resilience. True old-growth forests are layered, irregular, filled with dead wood, gaps, and overlapping generations of life. They look chaotic because life is chaotic—at least when it’s thriving.

Birds: More Than Canaries in Coal Mines

If there is one accessible entry point into deeper ecological awareness, Ethan suggests it’s birds. Unlike the practice of sending canaries into coal mines, though, this method requires listening, not for the absence of birdsong, but its presence—and its variety! Learning bird species—especially through tools like the Merlin Bird ID app—opens a whole new layer of perception.

As you learn more about them, birds become messengers, revealing what habitats are present, which are missing, and what might be possible where we already are. 

Birds remind us that beauty and function are not separate goals: a forest rich enough to support a diversity of birds is also a forest better equipped to handle change. Different birds require different conditions: dense understories, open canopies, wetlands, mature trees. When you learn to recognize them, you begin to “read” the landscape in real time. 

More importantly, birds shift the conversation from loss to potential. Instead of asking what has disappeared, you begin to ask what could return—and what role you might play in making that possible.

Resilience, it turns out, often sounds like birdsong.

“Nature” as a Blanket—and the Danger of Vague Love

Perhaps the most moving moment in caring for his own land, originally a degraded strand of Bear Island, came when Ethan heard two bird species singing in the same place—species that, according to conventional wisdom, should never coexist. The forest had become complex enough to hold both. That moment reframed what he believed was possible—not just for forests, but for us. 

True care requires specificity; it requires seeing what is actually happening in a particular place and responding with informed intention, rather than blanket assumptions.

One of Ethan’s sharpest insights concerns the way we use the word nature itself. We toss it around as if it were a single, unified thing, when in reality it encompasses millions of relationships, histories, and processes. By collapsing all of that complexity into one comforting word, we risk turning reverence into abstraction.

When we say, “Nature will heal itself,” we may be expressing hope—but we may also be absolving ourselves of responsibility that belongs to us. Sometimes ecosystems can recover on their own, but sometimes they cannot—especially after centuries of extraction, fragmentation, and introduced species. Sometimes love requires hands.

This insight landed personally for me. My husband and I steward a large forest in Vermont, and our original plan was simple: leave it alone. It felt respectful. But as Ethan gently pointed out, love without attention can become neglect. Some forests do need intervention—not domination, but informed, humble participation. 

Healing does not require perfection. It requires attention, patience, and a willingness to build around what is still alive.

Why This Matters—Even If You Don’t Own Land

You don’t need acres of forest to absorb these lessons; you don’t need equipment or credentials. What you need is a willingness to stop skimming—to notice fallen trees for what they are, to listen to birds, to question easy narratives, and to trade vague concern for specific care.

Ethan Tapper’s work reminds us that the world is not only breaking, it is also regenerating—quietly, persistently, and often unnoticed. The future will be shaped, not just by grand gestures, but by people willing to go deeper, to see more clearly, and to participate thoughtfully in the systems that sustain us.

Sometimes the most hopeful act is simply learning how to see what’s already there—and choosing, gently but deliberately, to help it thrive.

References Mentioned:

CoG Episode 208 – This Forester’s Radical Ideas Could Save Our Ecosystems! (Ethan Tapper)

Websites

Author Website (book, speaking, forest planning work)
Ethan Tapper on Instagram (short educational forest videos)
Ethan Tapper on YouTube

Birding & Ecological Literacy Tools
Merlin Bird ID App – Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Cornell Lab of Ornithology (Bird science, conservation, and education)
Audubon – The Birders’ Dozen (indicator species for healthy habitats)

Rewilding & Ecological Restoration
Planet Wild (Global rewilding and ecosystem restoration projects)
Rewilding Britain (Referenced conceptually in the Scotland discussion)

Forestry & Ecological Concepts Referenced
(Helpful background reading for curious listeners)
Old-Growth Forest Characteristics – USDA Forest Service
Early Successional Forests & Biodiversity – Audubon
Forest Resilience & Diversity – Yale School of the Environment

Books

• Ethan Tapper – How to Love a Forest
• Robin Wall Kimmerer –Braiding Sweetgrass

Chapters:

• 00:00 – Intro & Welcome
• 04:00 – How to Love a Forest and Why It Resonates
• 10:30 – Why Old Trees Matter More Than Size
• 16:13 – Death, Decay, and the Life of Forests
• 22:05 – Why We Want Forests to Look Like Parks
• 28:45 – Rethinking the Word “Nature”
• 33:10 – Forest Resilience, Diversity, and Global Change
• 39:22 – Break
• 42:39 – Reading Forests Through Birds
• 49:45 – From Knowing More to Doing More
• 1:09:50 – Healing Bear Island
• 1:16:30 – Closing