Social Forestry - by Tomi Hazel Vaarde (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Social Forestry: Tending the Land as People of Place is a must-have for anyone wanting to have a reciprocating relationship with their communities, themselves, and most importantly their awe-inspiring forests and landscapes.

Social Forestry connects villages and communities to their forests and adjoining bodies of water. It includes forest management, protection, and regeneration of deforested lands with the objective of improving the rural, environmental, and social development. Through ecological assessment, carbon sequestration, and generating wildcrafts, people re-establish their wonder in the woods.

Author Tomi Hazel Vaarde, collaborator of Siskiyou Permaculture, uses poetry, photographs, drawings, and data to outline philosophies and concepts of Social Forestry. By weaving culturally sensitive stories, myths, and lessons from a range of customs and traditions including North American Indigenous communities and Vaarde's own Quaker upbringing, Vaarde explores how holistic land and community management approaches can facilitate resolution of some of our most dire local and global crises. The writer's work is critical to overcoming eco-grief while instilling necessary changes to the West Coast landscape for fire mitigation and restoration of complex forest systems for generations to come.

Many indigenous peoples have learned regenerative management by living for generations in and with a sense of place, but few examples of whole-system planning and participation are evident in modern society. Climate adaptation, human survival, and conservation efforts to maintain biodiversity that supports life on Earth require radical, back-to-the-roots grounding and intentional dedication. Social Forestry helps readers remember the ways of the wild while implementing local food production, collaboration with conservation efforts, forest management, and stabilization of headwaters to build resilience for the long term. To live in harmony with our surroundings, we need to re-skill, always remembering those who came before us and acting in ways that honor traditional wisdom of people and place.

Social Forestry includes 31 4-color posters and 54 images.

Review Quotes

Vaarde delivers a guide to forging reciprocal, regenerative relationships between nature and communities.

The author has been advising farms, stewarding forests, and teaching environmental sciences for more than 50 years since earning degrees in forestry and systematic botany from Syracuse University and SUNY College of Forestry. Vaarde's book is a collection of data, prose, poems, photographs, drawings, and posters that explain the philosophies of social forestry and land ethics. Forests and bodies of water are often considered as essential only in relation to their benefits to human beings; the author challenges that idea by connecting nature to communities and emphasizing nature's; forestry work and ecology; cultures of place (shared values, belief systems, or ways of life within a specific geographical region); and visioning (picturing what one wants to happen and how a story might unfold). Vaarde recognizes that reading does not replace action when it comes to environmentalism: "This book is not merely a recipe collection, where the reader can pick and choose their indulgences; rather, we want to suggest that all skills and opportunities are embedded in cultural contexts that shape action and involvement in complex ways that a book cannot fully enfold." The author encourages conservation efforts, forest management, local food production, and the promotion of environmental resiliency, among other practices, and includes myths, anecdotes, and lessons from many North American Indigenous communities' customs and traditions. The book is brimming with well-researched information on every aspect of social forestry--readers should be warned that a surfeit of data and academic jargon can make it read like a textbook. Despite that, Vaarde does their due diligence to honor the traditional wisdom of communities and help human beings live in harmony with their surroundings. The book is a must-read for anyone curious to learn more about ethical land practices.

A complex and informative all-in-one manual on social forestry.

-- Kirkus Review