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.
This book is perfect for homesteaders, permaculturists, foresters, land managers, climate activists, and policy makers, as well as people wanting to make a difference in their own local environment
The content of Social Forestry creates a new precedent for stewarding land, building community, and revitalizing our relationship with our planet Earth.
Its principles and vision can be adapted to many different climates and ecosystems.
Hazel’s work has had a large impact in the permaculture community worldwide, including mentorship of renowned author and permaculturist, Starhawk.
Teaching dozens of permaculture courses in the last 30 years, Hazel has co-taught with other influential educators Toby Hemenway and Mark Lakeman.
This book is impressive in its ability to craft imaginative, poetic wording of heavy yet necessary topics of eco-grief, fire mitigation, and Indigenious reparations.
Social Forestry will be a welcome addition to the bookshelf of anyone who’s read and loved Robin Wall Kimmerer’s classic Braiding Sweetgrass.
