This essay explores the complex relationship between humanity and forests, stressing how, historically and today, we have quantified and managed these ecosystems. From the seventeenth century, optimising forest yield was already a concern, mainly for uses such as shipbuilding and military defence; today this management extends to paper and timber production, assessed through profitability calculations. In the context of the Anthropocene, marked by a shrinking of the areas little touched by humans, an awareness of the finiteness of natural resources and global warming, the forest becomes a "central figure of environmental thought". The book sets out to show how varied are the ways in which contemporary photographers can reactivate our relations with the forest and revive our capacity to be affected by forms of existence other than our own. Dealing with forest ecosystems, their works also open onto a political reflection on land planning, the exploitation of natural resources and the extractivism in force in the contemporary world, and lead to a reflection on the forest as a common good, which they help to put up for debate.