BETHEL — The Mahoosuc Land Trust’s 23rd annual meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 21, in the Ordway Living Room at Gould Academy.

Following the business portion, Tom Wessels, noted ecologist and author, will speak, Jolan Ippolito of the trust stated Saturday in a news release.

Wessels’ presentation is “Reading the Forested Landscape,” which is based on his well-known book, “Reading the Forested Landscape, A Natural History of New England.” Wessels will introduce people to approaches used to interpret a forest’s history while wandering through it, Ippolito said.

Using evidence such as the shapes of trees, scars on their trunks, the pattern of decay in stumps, the construction of stone walls, and the lay of the land, it is possible to unravel complex stories etched into our forested landscape, she said.

Wessels is an ecologist and founding director of the master’s degree program in Conservation Biology at Antioch University New England. He is presently Faculty Emeritus.

He is the current chairman of The Center for Whole Communities and former chairman of the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation that fosters environmental leadership through graduate fellowships and organizational grants.

He served as an ecological consultant to the Rain Forest Alliance’s SmartWood Green  Certification Program. He helped draft green certification assessment guidelines for forest operations in the northeastern United States and adjacent Canada, Ippolito said.

Tom has conducted landscape level workshops throughout the United States for more than 30 years. His books include: “Reading the Forested Landscape,” “The Granite Landscape,” “Untamed Vermont,” “The Myth of Progress,” and “Forest Forensics: A Field Guide to Reading the Forested Landscape.”

The Mahoosuc Land Trust annual meeting is open to the public. Memberships and membership renewals are available at the meeting. A $5 donation is requested from those attending who are not land trust members.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com