Good question! So old-growth is more profitable for a number of reasons.

First, old-growth wood is stronger with tight, dense grains. This is part of the reason why they fetch a higher price. For example, Western Red Cedar is rot-resistant and supple. So in 2019, WRC fetched $357 per cubic metre on the international market. And there's a lot of cubic metres in ancient, giant old trees.

Old-growth properties also mean they are perfectly suited to high-end and specialty products such as furniture, musical instruments, finishing products and shake and shingle manufacturing. As an interesting little fact, Teal-Jones, the logging company at Fairy Creek, is the world's largest maker of acoustic guitar heads.

Second, because old-growth forests are older they are denser. A typical old-growth site can yield 1,500-1,800 cubic metres per hectare. Second-growth forests yield about a third of that. This means that logging companies get a lot more bang for their buck.