Day 073 - 13 Jan 95 - Page 38
1 cutting from the forest industry is the major cause of
2 clear cutting. There are other reasons why there are clear
3 cutting in Canada but they are much smaller, such as oil
4 exploration and things like this. But, yes, these will be
5 replaced, these natural forests -- this is really all old
6 growth -- these natural forests will be replaced with
7 plantations of single species or one or two species of
8 favourite, commercial coniferous trees.
9
10 Q. Mr. Mallinson, I believe, in his evidence accepted that the
11 Canadian forestry practices have come under a lot of
12 criticism.
13 A. Yes.
14
15 Q. I cannot remember if he accepted that they were bad
16 practices or not. Then he referred us to an accord which
17 the court may remember, Canada Forest Accord, which was, if
18 you remember, signed by a number of government departments
19 and environmental organisations?
20 A. Yes.
21
22 Q. I just want to ask you a question about that kind of
23 accord. What does that mean in real terms? Does it mean
24 that the environmental movement or those representatives of
25 it think the situation is now fine or what does it mean?
26 A. Well, the accord, if you look at the people who signed
27 it, it was mostly government agencies of one form or
28 another and industry agencies of one form or another. In
29 Canada, to a great extent, the industry and the government
30 are exactly the same thing; they go hand in hand.
31 Basically, there was about three environmental groups which
32 I have never heard of who had signed on to it, but if I was
33 looking for a document that had authenticity and was
34 carrying weight, I would be looking for an environmental
35 group such as WWF Canada signing on to that document.
36
37 I particularly choose WWF Canada because WWF, as I said
38 before, is not a campaigning organisation. They do their
39 very, very best to work with industry, with the
40 conventional standard government agencies. And, I mean, it
41 is not signed up by Green Peace Canada, it is not signed up
42 by sort of Friends of (inaudible), it is not signed up by
43 Northern Rockies Protection Alliance, it is not signed up
44 really by anybody I have ever heard of, whether they are
45 radical ones or conservative ones like the Sierra Club of
46 Canada and, particularly, WWF of Canada, and I would say, I
47 do not know if it is still so, but WWF Canada used to have
48 as its Chair a forest industry person; it might not be so
49 now.
50
51 Q. So, the environmental problems that you claim or you
52 believe (and also Mr. Mallinson, I think, accepted) that
53 Canada had come under criticism for its forest practices
54 quite extensively ---
55 A. Yes.
56
57 Q. -- has not much changed, as far as you know?
58 A. Very little has changed. The only thing that really
59 has changed is Canadian either the State or the Federal
60 Government have set up what I would call reference forests,
