Sources and How to Check Everything

Every figure in this project comes from official or published data. This page lists the sources so anyone can check them. The two machine-readable registers behind it are data/public-data-audit/source-register.csv (GIS layers) and data/source-register-analysis.csv (economic, carbon, fire, species, and financial claims). Every number and its exact wording is in notes/canonical-figures.md.

Claim types used throughout: fact, screening fact, screening estimate, established science, context. Screening means a useful public-data signal, not a final measurement.

Government spatial data (the maps and overlaps)

• Consolidated Cutblocks (recorded harvest): https://catalogue.data.gov.bc.ca/dataset/harvested-areas-of-bc-consolidated-cutblocks-
• VRI forest vegetation (forest age screening): https://catalogue.data.gov.bc.ca/dataset/vri-2023-forest-vegetation-composite-rank-1-layer-r1-
• Old Growth Management Areas (legal): https://catalogue.data.gov.bc.ca/dataset/1b30f3bd-0ad0-4128-916b-66c6dd91dea4
• Old Growth Technical Advisory Panel priority deferrals, ancient forest, old forests, big trees: https://catalogue.data.gov.bc.ca/dataset/b43bc442-8a0f-42f2-b085-04f4771b2f28 and https://catalogue.data.gov.bc.ca/dataset/6f08c9d8-d6c0-4f08-ac64-54585c92ccb0
• Freshwater Atlas streams and named watersheds, forest road tenure: BC Data Catalogue / DataBC services (exact layer references in the build scripts).
• PSCIS fish-passage assessments: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/plants-animals-ecosystems/fish/aquatic-habitat-management/fish-passage/fish-passage-technical
• Historical wildfire perimeters: https://catalogue.data.gov.bc.ca/dataset/fire-perimeters-historical
• BCTS timber sale licence schedules: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/forestry/bc-timber-sales/tsl

Economics

• ESSA Technologies 2021, Economic Valuation of Old Growth Forests on Vancouver Island (Port Renfrew pilot). Found protecting old growth in its study area nets about $97M vs $56.4M business as usual, a $40M improvement once carbon, recreation, and tourism are counted: https://www.essa.com/what-is-the-economic-value-of-old-growth-forests-if-they-are-kept-standing/ The study area is the portion of the Arrowsmith-South Island TSA within 35 km of Port Renfrew, not our exact nine-watershed area.
• Federal carbon price ($80/t CO2 in 2024 rising to $170/t by 2030): https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/pricing-pollution-how-it-will-work.html
• Stumpage below market (contested): in the softwood lumber dispute the U.S. has formally found B.C. sets Crown stumpage below market value (a subsidy); B.C. disputes it. Government of B.C. softwood factsheet: https://news.gov.bc.ca/factsheets/softwood-lumber-dispute

Governance: what the government has known

• 1995 Clayoquot Sound Scientific Panel (~170 ecosystem-based recommendations the government agreed to implement): https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/crown-land-water/land-use-planning/regions/west-coast/clayoquot-sound-watershed-plans
• 2020 Old Growth Strategic Review (14 recommendations, promised within three years; reviews report none fully implemented five years on; deferrals cover ~40% of high-risk old growth): https://www.wildernesscommittee.org/news/bc-fails-deliver-OGSR-paradigm-shift and https://ancientforestalliance.org/five-years-after-old-growth-strategic-review-bc-government-stalls-progress-and-starts-to-backslide/
• 2026 Technical Advisory Panel letter to the Premier: https://vicnews.com/2026/03/20/b-c-allowing-old-growth-logging-despite-protection-promise-experts-say/

Carbon and forest recovery

• Coastal temperate rainforest carbon density (productive coastal old growth stores on the order of 500-1,300 tonnes C/ha; among the most carbon-dense forests outside the tropics): https://phys.org/news/2021-06-temperate-old-growth-rainforest-key-sustainable.html and the BC Coastal Old-Growth Dynamics project: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/plants-animals-ecosystems/ecosystems/ecosystem-and-landscape-ecology-research-and-classification/coastal-old-growth-dynamics-ogd-project
• Coastal old-growth timber volume (about 1,000-1,800 m3/ha; second growth about a third): https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/old-growth-trees-british-columbia-1.6045289 and Ancient Forest Alliance (advocacy): https://ancientforestalliance.org/ancient-forests/common-questions-answers-bc-old-growth-forests/
• The carbon release fraction on harvest (40-65% of ecosystem carbon, even after off-site storage in wood products) is a published figure, applied here as a screening fraction to local hectares: Harmon, Ferrell & Franklin 1990, Science 247(4943):699-702, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.247.4943.699 ; synthesis at https://oldgrowthforestecology.org/ecological-values-of-old-growth-forests/ecological-processes-and-functions/carbon-sequestration-and-storage/

Fire and fuel

• BC wildfire suppression cost (about $1.1B in 2023, a record; provincial / taxpayer-funded): https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-wildfires-aug-13-2024-1.7293428
• Plantation and slash fire severity: Zald, H.S.J. & Dunn, C.J. 2018, "Severe fire weather and intensive forest management increase fire severity in a multi-ownership landscape," Ecological Applications 28(4): 1068-1080: https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.1710 (a drier Oregon system; do not transplant wholesale onto the wet Port Renfrew coast).
• Soil moisture as a fire-spread predictor (old forest holds moisture; young plantations dry out): Holden et al. 2025, Geophysical Research Letters: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2025GL116248
• Coastal forests are no longer fire-immune, and Mosaic itself called the 2026 Island season elevated-risk: https://www.timescolonist.com/bc-news/we-are-not-immune-forest-fire-risk-is-real-even-in-a-coastal-temperate-rainforest-3126725 and https://www.mosaicforests.com/news-views/vancouver-island-enters-2026-wildfire-season-at-elevated-risk-as-mosaic-forest-management-expands-detection-and-mitigation-efforts
• Forest Practices Board, Help or Hinder? Aligning forestry practices with wildfire risk reduction: https://www.bcfpb.ca/release-publications/releases/help-or-hinder/

Species

• Marbled murrelet (lost more than 20% of nesting habitat over three generations; 35-53% of BC coastal old growth lost by the late 1990s): COSEWIC status report https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/species-risk-public-registry/cosewic-assessments-status-reports/marbled-murrelet-2012.html and the federal recovery strategy https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/species-risk-public-registry/recovery-strategies/marbled-murrelet-2014-proposed.html

Company financials and ownership (FY2024)

• Western Forest Products (revenue $1,063.9M, net loss $34.5M, dividend suspended since Nov 2023): https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/02/13/3026363/0/en/Western-Announces-Fourth-Quarter-and-Fiscal-2024-Results.html
• Canfor, Interfor, West Fraser, Doman: per-company source URLs are in data/corporate-accountability/public-company-financials.csv.
• Ownership: BC Timber Sales is a government agency; TimberWest is owned by BCI and PSP, and Island Timberlands by BCI and AIMCo, both managed by Mosaic; Qala:yit Forestry is Pacheedaht. TimberWest and Island Timberlands financials are not public.

Deferral logging and the expert panel

• Named blocks harvested inside priority-deferral areas after the November 2021 recommendation: data/public-data-audit/harvest-in-deferral-blocks.csv, built by scripts/build_deferral_overlap_blocks.py. Each is keyed by RESULTS opening ID.
• Per-block records-gap register: every recent cutblock (2015+) screened against old growth, deferrals, OGMAs, streams, recreation, and fish records, with the missing records and a ready-to-file FOI request for each Tier 1 block. See data/public-data-audit/records-gap-register.csv and records-gap-foi-pack.md, built by scripts/build_records_gap_register.py.
• March 2026 Technical Advisory Panel letter to the Premier (deferral areas being logged; BCTS becoming the primary harvester in deferral zones): https://vicnews.com/2026/03/20/b-c-allowing-old-growth-logging-despite-protection-promise-experts-say/

Method and limitations

How every number was produced, and an honest list of where this could be wrong, is in notes/port-renfrew-public-data-audit-methods.md. The short version: this is official data and reproducible screening, framed as a reason to ask for records, not as proof that any rule was broken.