Day 286 - 24 Oct 96 - Page 17
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2 MR. RAMPTON: It is way over to the west, my Lord.
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4 MR. MORRIS: Acre was the area that was opened up, I think, in
5 the '70s. A lot of destruction took place on the very west
6 of the map.
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8 MR. RAMPTON: If your Lordship has the province marked Rondonia
9 and follows the main road BR 364 west-north-west you get to
10 the province called Acre, which is in the far west of the
11 country next door to Peru.
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13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am being as blind as usual. I can just
14 sort of see a grey area.
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16 MR. RAMPTON: Does your Lordship see Rio Grande?
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18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I can see where Rondonia is written.
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20 MR. RAMPTON: If your Lordship takes the BR 364 from Porto Veho
21 and follows it to the border of Peru, your Lordship sees
22 Acre as the last part of the chain.
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24 MR. MORRIS: It is as I pointed out. It is just here. Just
25 here. (Indicates)
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27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, I see. Yes.
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29 MR. MORRIS: And I think Sue Branford had said that she was in
30 the area of Pontes a Lacerda, she was analysing the supply
31 routes along the BR, what is the BR170, or around Pontes a
32 Lacerda and becomes the BR364 when it goes further west.
33 That goes to Cuiaba. It is part of a whole supply route to
34 Cuiaba, Cuiaba was the kind of key, simply the key meeting
35 place for supply bringing trucks in from ex-tropical forest
36 areas that were being opened up for that purpose.
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38 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Thank you. (Pause)
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40 MR. MORRIS: The other point I want to make about the Cotter
41 map, Sue Branford on page 30, line 25, says it was
42 underestimating the extent of the deforestation, and
43 I think Charles Secrett made the same point. This is the
44 Brazil one. Of course, in any case, it does not present
45 the complexity of forest types outside the main block
46 identified on the map, and as we have heard from all the
47 witnesses that there are huge areas of rainforest and
48 tropical forest outside of the main blocks, if you like, of
49 such forest, and indeed the opposite is the case, within
50 the huge blocks of what are identified as rainforest or
51 tropical forest there are areas of different vegetation.
52 But one of the most important identified extensions of the
53 main blocks of Amazonian rainforest is along the
54 tributaries of the Amazon, such as the River Araguaia.
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56 Can I just say the reference to Acre in Sue Branford's
57 evidence is on page 5 of her evidence and in fact if we go
58 over the page she moves on to Sinop and how she witnessed
59 the opening up of the Sinop region. She went along the
60 original dirt track which eventually became the main supply
