Praise for Social Forestry
“Social Forestry by Tomi Hazel Vaarde is a book of hope. Hazel shows how our relationship with the Earth and her forests does not have to be an extractive on leading to destruction. Through cooperating together we can regenerate our forests and rewild ourselves and the land, growing hope as ecosystems recover while empires crumble.”
– Vandana Shiva, PhD, author of Agroecology and Regnerative Agriculture: Susainable Solutions for Hunger, Poverty, and Climate Change
“Hazel’s new book is brilliant! And full of surprises. In these times of fear and isolation, their poetic trailblazing integrates deep ecology, the ethics of First-Nation cultures, small-is-beautiful bioregionalism, and ‘mythic memory’ to advocate the repair of the planet and forests, while rewilding our own damaged psyches.”
– Chellis Glendinning, PhD, author of My Name is Chellis and I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization
“Step into this manzanita-burning charcoal dirigible for the wildest ride you can imagine through Gaelic seasonal rhythms, Quaker ethics, medieval guild practice, permaculture insights, and deep-rooted tree goddess wisdom. Tomi Hazel will teach you how to manage towering bonfires, abundant gardens, forest gifts, feral decorating, land assessment, and communal love dynamics with a healthy serving of improv poetry and insight from days long ago. A true archetypal elder, Tomi Hazel validates your internal clock and doses out the medicine for your soul, your land, and your people. Do not miss your chance to experience this inimitable voice, guiding us toward a renewable, regenerative future.”
– Jessica Carew Kraft, author of Why We need to Be Wild
“Embracing past and present with a timeless eye on the future, the author weaves their life story into the story of chosen place, the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon, walking with wisdom between the settler and Indigenous worlds that have shaped it. . .Grounded in the material realities of land, people, and community to an uncommon degree, the author points ceaselessly toward the spirit in all things. For scholars of change, the bibliography alone is worth the price of admission. To find such a guide and visionary elder in the way of holistic thinking is a gift beyond measure.”
– Peter Bane, author of The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country and Executive Director of Permaculture Institute of North America
“Hazel is one of few elders in the rewilding community. Their visionary approach to integrating humans back into the land has inspired thousands of people and given us hope for a transition to a vibrant, regenerative future. This book is the priceless culmination of their experiences, knowledge, stories, and passion gained and given throughout their lifetime. It will provide inspiration, insight, and direction for decades to come, right when we’ll need it most.”
– Peter Michael Bauer, host of the Rewilding Podcast
“Inside this luminous guide, you will find practical placemaking advice, ancient lore, and a humor that shimmers. Receive these generous offerings–a lifetime of wisdom from an elder, a teacher of permaculture, and a radical changemaker like no other–and you will be transformed. Together we listen to the earth, we understand where we belong, and we find our way home again.”
– Helena Norberg-Hodge, Director of Local Futures and author of Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh
With Social Forestry: Tending the Land as People of Place, Hazel takes us into what may seem to most of us to be an alternative universe, a world in which humans live as an integral part of a healthy ecosystem. It can serve well as a handbook for living in and with a forest, but it’s much, much more. It offers, for most of us, the rarest of chances to step out of our doomed industrial culture for a few hours and learn what it would be like to live as a species that could thrive on into the indefinite future without degrading the ecosphere to the point of collapse.”
– Stan Cos, author of The Path to a Livable Future: A New Politics to Fight Climate Change, Racism, and the Next Pandemic
“It is clear that Hazel has developed a deep understanding–a knowledge, wisdom, and power–of how humans can be an integral part of the solution as we seek to bring about habitat restoration. Hazel stands in the new ‘front line’ in the battle to engage people with place, and Social Forestry will, I am sure, become a key text in the emerging literature on the theme. If we are to heal our relationship with our forests and woodlands, we would do well to dive deep into the writing of Hazel Vaarde.”
– Alexander Langlands BA MA PhD PGCert FHEA FSA, Senior Lecturer Uwch Ddarlithydd, History/Heritage – Hanes/ Treftadaeth