Experts say what Apple is doing with about 3,600 acres of eastern North Carolina forests could be just the starting point. “I think we’re at the front-end of what will hopefully be a trend,” says Mary Watzin, dean of N.C. State University’s College of Natural Resources. Apple, through a partnership with Virginia-based nonprofit The Conservation Fund, has pledged to maintain land it acquired two years ago in Brunswick County as a working forest.