VERMONT—One enterprising Vermont forester getting a lot of buzz lately in Eastern Region stewardship circles is raising the bar for effective public communications. In fact, Ethan Tapper recently received the Forest Service Eastern Region Forester of the Year award for his outstanding public communications efforts in support of the region’s Forest Stewardship program.

Tapper is the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation Chittenden County Forester. The Saxtons River, Vermont, native manages the current use program in Chittenden County, in which about 800 parcels are enrolled. He also serves as a resource for any forest landowner in the county and manages about a dozen community forests totaling 4,500 acres, plus public communications to support the program.

His self-taught public communications approach is getting the most attention lately. Instead of just doing standard “tech transfer” presentations in the woods for small groups, he uses a variety of public communication tools in his forest stewardship program to help landowners make improvements on their lands.

The buzz went up in pitch May 3 when he gave a presentation to the Northeast-Midwest State Foresters Alliance in Duluth, Minnesota.

Region 9 Cooperative Forestry Director Mark Buccowich described Tapper’s talk as dazzling. “Here is a guy who is a great presenter with a very creative take on working with the public. What is more State and Private (Forestry) than a service forester with a great message?”

Karl Honkonen, a Region 9 watershed forester in Maine, agreed, saying his informed approach provides food for thought on how to get forest stewardship messages to the public in intriguing ways.

Tapper’s message is getting out in commercial venues as well. Northern Woodlands magazine’s bi-weekly interview series “Community Voices” described his work “as much about engaging the community as it is about managing the forests.” His outreach efforts include regular woods walks and virtual events, a monthly column published in 11 local newspapers, a quarterly column in Northern Woodlands magazine, and more than 90 webinars and videos on his YouTube channel.”

What started him down the road to YouTube and email lists was the pandemic. He had just finished a project and was thinking about how to get creative about outreach when it hit, cutting off all in-person communications. He realized some other type of outreach would be needed for people stranded at home.

Tapper reached out to several partner organizations in Vermont, and they started doing events—more than 50 in all in 2020. Tapper was an organizer and/or presenter in all of those, and he used the YouTube channel as a place to store all these video events.

He recorded short videos on his smartphone and then taught himself how to use the free movie editing app on the phone to edit videos, even adding subtitles and more.

Next, he created educational signage with QR codes embedded to discuss important aspects of his forest management projects. People touring the forest stewardship demonstration sites could scan a QR code to download the Avenza Maps app and a georeferenced PDF map. This allows then to navigate a self-guided tour through the project area, punctuated by informational signage explaining different aspects of the project to. At each stop, QR codes link to different resources and short video clips of him explaining aspects of the project.

During the pandemic, he developed an email list to share all the outreach partners were doing each week for landowners. This email list has evolved into a way to share videos, articles and virtual and in-person events, as well as other resources. Today, his email list is subscribed to by 600 people and reaches many more through Vermont’s Front Porch Forum community messaging platform.

He often creates story maps to better communicate his stewardship project results, like this one for the Milton Town Forest Management Plan.

Tapper continues to build upon his educational programs by expanding his communication channels.