The incidence of forest damage in Germany and elsewhere in Europe in the early 1980s led to concerns of an increasing and widespread problem, The potential costs of damage were seen as being high and blame was initially placed on acid rain, This in turn led to estimates of very high environmental costs of coal and oil fired power generation, Fortunately, forest damage has not matched the worst expectations, Additionally, except in areas of high local emissions, acidifying pollutants are seen as only part of the reason for forest damage, Poor silviculture and climate effects may also contribute, This paper examines the evidence for forest damage and the extent to which it can be ascribed to acidifying pollutants. A model is proposed to estimate the costs of forest damage due to acidifying pollutants which relates loss of growth to the deposition of oxidized sulphur and nitrogen above target loads, When related back to a typical UK coal fired power station, the estimated adders are 0.05p/kWh (range 0.006 p/kWh to 0.120 p/kWh) for SO2 and 0.01 p/kWh (range -0.010 p/kWh to 0.038 p/kWh) for NOx.