The forest is a subject of public debate that affects many, as it plays a crucial role in Sweden’s ability to drastically and rapidly reduce its climate impact. However, the forest’s potential to play this role is constrained by a debate often described as polarised. The overarching aim of my doctoral thesis is to increase understanding of how the interaction between humans and the material forest both shapes and is shaped by public debates about the forest. In this paper, I present preliminary findings from my work with Participatory Critical Rhetoric among people who protect forests, own forests, and work in forests for the forest industry. A central premise is that a polarized public debate both influences and is influenced by lived experiences of the forest. In order to capture the dynamics of this reciprocal influence, the dissertation adopts a rhetorical perspective. Rhetoric can be understood as an activity in a democratic society. But rhetoric is also understood as a fundamental human activity through which we construct reality and shape worldviews through interaction with our material surroundings. It is within the tension between rhetoric as a democratic activity and rhetoric as the continuous interaction between humans and their material environment that this project is situated. Studying public debate can offer only a limited understanding of the depth of forest conflicts. Conversely, focusing on rhetoric in the encounter between humans and the forest risks overlooking the public debate and its role as a potential platform for driving real change. this dissertation therefore examines how public debate affects individuals in the forest, by attending to the rhetoric that unfolds in the encounter between individuals and the forest, in the forest itself. through this approach, the study contributes to a more holistic understanding of how material everyday practices interact with polarized public debates.