University of Montana students calculate tree benefits

For the next week, trees across the University of Montana campus will be wearing price tags showing off the value they provide to the school.

Josh Smith, a recent UM graduate and employee of the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, said the project was organized by students from UM’s College of Forestry and Conservation.

To come up with the valuations for each of the trees, Smith and students with the school’s branch of Society of American Foresters used a piece of computer software called i-Tree Design, which allowed them to use satellite maps to mark the size of the trees and where they were in relation to nearby buildings. Smith said the software then uses about 60,000 different calculations to determine the overall economic benefit that tree provides over the course of a 50-year period.

In all, the students marked 28 different trees around campus with the neon green tags that show their economic benefit to the school. Those trees alone totaled more than $200,000 in value over a 50-year period.

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