What the Forest Can Teach Us About Hope

What the Forest Can Teach Us About Hope

Author: Farmer Kelley

I attended a talk last week by a forester named Ethan Tapper, who wrote this amazing book called How to Love a Forest.

Between my downtown upbringing and the wide-open fields at the farm, I have to admit I haven’t thought too much about forests and their ecosystems. Even when I started my silvopasture, I was thinking mostly about shade for my pasture grass and forage for my animals.

But How to Love a Forest is an all-encompassing look at how the birds, beasts, bugs, trees, and countless other parts of a forest work together to keep the ecosystem alive.

At a time when so much of what we hear is doom and gloom, climate change, deforestation, overpopulation, and environmental damage, his book offers an important reminder: nature can heal.

Ethan told the story of seeing river otters at a zoo when he was a child (the zoo thing is a debate for another day). His point was simple: he might never have cared about river otters if he hadn’t seen them firsthand.

And that made me think.

Maybe if we spend more time in the forest with our children and grandchildren, letting them see, hear, touch, and experience the natural world for themselves, we can spark something in them too.

Maybe loving the forest starts with simply spending time in it.

And maybe that love gives us hope that the next generation will want to care for it too.

Warmly,

Farmer Kelley