The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management produced – with some help from Forest Metrix – two succinct pamphlets to help foresters and landowners think about carbon. One is geared to foresters looking to be better able to answer client questions; and another is geared to landowners looking to explore what they can do to add carbon considerations into their management priorities.

We also created an Excel spreadsheet that takes the great work done at the US Forestry Service’s office in Amherst to make a spreadsheet tool so foresters can take basic stand data already collected in forest inventories and timber cruises to roughly estimate carbon stores per stand. This tool is designed specifically for the forest types in Rhode Island. A more general web-based tool can be found here.

All resources are free. The effort was paid for with funding provided in part through a grant from the USDA Forest Service to the Northeast State Foresters Association, and by the RIDEM Division of the Forest Environment’s Forest Stewardship Program.

The Excel calculation tool includes the formulas and coefficients developed by William Van Doren of the Massachusetts Dept. of Conservation and Recreation. He was also very generous with his time and advice for the tool.

The North East Foresters Association also maintains a great site for the newest updates in carbon considerations at www.northeastforestcarbon.org.