That’s one quickie estimate by an expert, who put this order-of-magnitude dollar figure on the state’s woodlands, if its carbon-sink characteristics could be traded on carbon markets.

Happily, the Free-Press article includes hiscalculations (if only more reporters followed suit - well done, Candace Page):

"His math ran like this: Assume one-quarter ofVermont’s 11 million acres of forest land was managed to increasecarbon storage by 20 percent. The value of that increased storage -with carbon credits running $8 a metric ton - would be $833 million."

The question of forests’ carbon-sink value is a very complicated one, with a lot of research yet to be done. My suspicion is that temperate forests (as compared to their tropical brethren) are likely to provide less CO2 help than we would like - but planting more trees and maintaining woodlands has so many other environmental benefits that I don’t think we need to be overly concerned.