bThis no-holds-barred narrative of the failure of conservation in northern New England's forests envisions a wilder, more equitable, lower-carbon future for forest-dependent communitiesb p Jamie Sayen approaches the story of northern New England's undeveloped forests from the viewpoints of the previously unheard the forest and the nonhuman species it sustains, the First Peoples, and, in more recent times, the disenfranchised human voices of the forest, including those of loggers, mill workers, and citizens who, like Henry David Thoreau, wish to speak a kind word for nature. p From 1988 to 2016 paper companies sold their timberlands and closed seventeen paper mills in northern New England. Policy makers ceded veto power to large absentee landowners, who tried to preserve the status quo by demanding additional tax cuts and other subsidies for economic elites. They vetoed measures designed to restore and preserve forest health at present, about half of the former industrial forests are cl