Some individual trees in temperate rain forests have grown for two millennia and surpass six meters in diameter. The adjacent waters are productive as well. The upwelling zones and cold-water currents that bathe the edges of coastal temperate rain forests account for a substantial share of the biological production of the oceans. The productivity of these marine ecosystems is enhanced by the nutrients and organic debris washed out of the coastal watersheds. Elsewhere in the northern hemisphere, Norway contains small fragments of coastal rain forest, but the forests formerly found along the west coasts of Ireland and Scotland, in parts of Iceland, and in a narrow crescent along the eastern shore of the Black Sea are long gone.
Chile contains the Southern Hemisphere's largest remaining coastal temperate rain forest.
Significant areas of coastal rain forest also stand on the west coast of New Zealand's South Island and on the Australian island of Tasmania. Throughout their original distribution, the fecundity and relatively mild maritime climates of coastal temperate rain forest regions have invited heavy exploitation. Coastal rain forests were among the first landscapes logged when Euro-Americans settled North America's Pacific Coast in the 1850s. Clearcut logging of old-growth conifers remains widespread in this region today, and many rain forest valleys have become industrial tree farms from which trees have already been harvested three times. Industrial exploitation of the lands and waters of the coastal temperate rain forest has meant secure profits for a relative handful of corporate enterprises but insecure livelihoods for thousands of residents.