Day 286 - 24 Oct 96 - Page 34
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2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Did Mr. Cesca say that about Costa Rica as
3 well as Brazil?
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5 MR. MORRIS: I do not think he said 'cuddly'.
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7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Forget the 'cuddly'.
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9 MR. MORRIS: I think the impression... I have not got the
10 references that he tried to give the impression that he had
11 visited some fairly small scale farms, not as small as
12 those in Brazil, or something. His evidence was that he
13 had hardly visited any percentage of farms in Brazil or
14 Costa Rica, he would only know they were supplying
15 McDonald's from what he had been told anyway.
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17 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Anyway, what is your point?
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19 MR. MORRIS: The point is, these are substantial, it shows that
20 McDonald's -- I don't really know what it shows actually.
21 It is, if they are trying to say that, Oh, they like to
22 work with small farms-----
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24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am interested in what you are trying to say
25 in relation to this. Mr. Rampton will tell me what
26 McDonald's are trying to say. What are you trying to say?
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28 MR. MORRIS: They are quite prepared to work with large scale
29 ranches. I mean, I think that -----
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31 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Then where do I go from there?
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33 MR. MORRIS: I don't know exactly, because Mr. Woolf was not
34 aware of any supplies to the San Isidro region, for
35 example, and I don't know where we go from there, really.
36 It might be irrelevant anyway. If I can just see if there
37 is anything else I need to add about Costa Rica?
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39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, sit down and take stock. (Pause)
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41 MR. MORRIS: Yes, there is. There was a point I was going to
42 make about Mr. Woolf, and indeed Co-op Montecillos.
43 I think Mr. Woolf had worked for Gisa, I can't remember now
44 if he still did, or what. But in any case, Donald Monroe
45 was a Civil Evidence Act notice witness from Gisa, from
46 McDonald's. And both Gisa and Co-op Montecillos are major
47 exporters of beef from Costa Rica to the USA.
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49 Therefore, the entire management of those companies are
50 implicated in rainforest destruction, causally implicated
51 in that destruction, because of their company's
52 responsibility for causing, being part of, that chain of
53 causation by making profits out of supplying US companies
54 with cheap imported beef. Cheap, or whatever special
55 qualities of their beef are. They have an interest, not
56 only in maintaining their supplies with McDonald's and
57 therefore saying whatever suits McDonald's, but also with
58 covering up the damage that their companies and their
59 position is doing to the environment and related other
60 effects.
