"The extent to which old-growth forests have been lost in the Pacific Northwest is well documented. The Committee on Environmental Issues in Pacific Northwest Forest Management estimates that when Euro-Americans arrived in the mid-1800s, "…as much as 80% of the forests in western Oregon and Washington were older than 80 years and about two-thirds were older than 200 years" (NRC 2000). By the 1990's, researchers estimated only 13% to 18% of forested area in western Oregon and Washington was in old-growth, a reduction of over 75% (NRC 2000). Federal lands are the last repositories of the unique ecological wealth represented by these old forests."
http://www.ecosystem.org/OG/science_letter.html 
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