← Port Renfrew forest accountability

The Full Cost: What Old-Growth Logging Near Port Renfrew Is Really Worth

Date prepared: 2026-06-03

This is a screening model, not an appraisal. It shows what happens to the economics of old-growth logging when you count the public costs that are normally left out. Dollar figures are illustrative and labelled. See data/full-cost/net-public-value.csv.

The finding that already exists

The strongest evidence is not ours. In 2021, ESSA Technologies completed an economic valuation of old-growth forests for a 35 km area around Port Renfrew, on a 100-year horizon at a 3 percent discount rate. Its result:

Protecting all old growth nets about CA$40 million more in public benefit than business as usual. That is carbon worth about +$46M and tourism and recreation worth about +$11M, against a timber-supply loss of about -$16M. [Fact: ESSA Port Renfrew valuation, 2021.]

In plain terms, a credible study (ESSA 2021) already found that keeping the old growth in its Port Renfrew study area standing is worth more to the public than logging it, once carbon and tourism are counted. The case for full-cost accounting is not hypothetical here. It has been measured.

How little the public is paid

Public stumpage, the price the public charges for its timber, averaged about CA$6.55 per cubic metre in the 2014 figures ESSA used, against log prices of roughly CA$68 to $212 per cubic metre depending on species. [Fact: ESSA 2021 stumpage and price tables.] The public owns the resource but captures a small share of its market value in direct cash, while carrying the costs below.

Carbon, valued

Our succession work estimated the carbon in this forest. Valued at the federal carbon price (CA$80 per tonne CO2 in 2024, rising to CA$170 by 2030), as a screening figure:

These apply a policy carbon price to screening tonnage. They show order of magnitude, not a market transaction. They are large because the carbon stock in coastal old growth is large.

What the public got versus what it gave up

Set the two side by side for the old growth already cut since 2010. Coastal old growth carries roughly 1,000 to 1,800 cubic metres of timber per hectare, so the 518 hectares cut held very roughly 0.5 to 0.9 million cubic metres. At about $6.55 per cubic metre average public stumpage, the public's direct cash take was on the order of $3 to $6 million. The carbon released from that same cutting is valued at roughly $30 to $274 million. Even at the most conservative ends, the carbon cost is several times the cash the public collected, before counting water, fish, roads, recreation, or wildfire. [Screening estimate; ESSA stumpage, published coastal volume ranges, our carbon screening.]

The categories still left out

ESSA itself was clear about what it did not count. Each of these is a cost of logging, so counting it would widen the gap against old-growth harvest, not narrow it.

Category In the public ledger? Note
Net public value (carbon + tourism + timber) Counted by ESSA Protection nets +$40M vs business as usual
Public stumpage Counted About $6.55/m3, small vs log value
Carbon (our screening) Quantified, screening $30-274M already released; $1.0-9.4B at stake
Drinking water and water quality Not counted ESSA excluded it
Fish beyond commercial coho; recreational and subsistence fishing Not counted ESSA counted only commercial coho
Road, culvert, and restoration liability Not quantified Hundreds of road-stream crossings; real future cost
Wildfire and fuel/slash management Not counted Real obligation (B.C. spent ~$1.1B on fire in 2023), not in the ledger
Monitoring, enforcement, administration Not counted Public cost of verifying commitments
Cultural values Not assessed For First Nations to define, not outsiders
Health and well-being Not counted Non-market value of intact forest

What this supports

The policy ask is simple and follows directly: before old-growth or high-risk forest is approved, sold, or cut, the public should see a full-cost accounting that sets timber and stumpage value against carbon, water, fish, roads, wildfire, restoration, recreation, and the rest. ESSA shows that when even a few of those are counted, protection can be the better public deal. The categories still missing would only strengthen that.

What this does not claim

Sources

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