Day 058 - 30 Nov 94 - Page 38
1 their evidence.
2
3 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have said that. I mean, the evidence of a
4 witness who is called is that which he gives in-chief in
5 cross-examination and re-examination. It is all his
6 evidence, it does not matter; it is what comes out of his
7 mouth in the witness box, regardless who has asked him the
8 question which has provoked the answer.
9
10 MR. MORRIS (To the witness): Just going back to Sweden for the
11 moment: In Sweden, was there a Forestry Act passed in
12 1980, as far as you are aware?
13 A. I believe there was a Forestry Act passed in 1980 and
14 there has been a Forestry Act passed in 1993.
15
16 Q. The Forestry Act in 1980, was that linked to a new policy
17 aimed to increase production so there would be no need to
18 import timber for sawmills and pulp factories?
19 A. The 1980 Act certainly had an economic basis to the Act
20 itself. It was not without environmental issues involved.
21
22 Q. But an aim was to increase production so that there would
23 be no need to have imported timber for those purposes; is
24 that correct?
25 A. Sweden ought to be with its huge coverage of forest
26 area self-sufficient in timber, and it would be very
27 logical for them to put into their Act means of progressing
28 that industry.
29
30 Q. I am just reading here from the article in New Scientist;
31 it is one of Mr. Hopkins' references. But did the Act
32 specify that owners of forest land, whether private or
33 public, must produce a certain amount of timber per
34 hectare?
35 A. I could not tell you that as an answer as I stand here.
36
37 Q. Did the plantations of the lodge poll pines start being
38 planted in Sweden in the 1980s?
39 A. I believe it to be correct that in Scandinavia
40 generally they tried species which had not been indigenous
41 to the country and, as I have already mentioned, in Finland
42 it failed, in Sweden they have ceased to do it, so,
43 presumably, the same thing applies there.
44
45 Q. It was done, though, throughout the 80s?
46 A. In the early 1980s a great deal of plantation was done
47 around the world to prove that species were going to be
48 economically and in other ways useful to their economy and
49 to their whole way of life.
50
51 Q. So it was not just indigenous, coniferous plantations in
52 Sweden, it was also lodge poll pine and, indeed, in
53 Finland?
54 A. Yes, it was experimented on a scale which, in
55 comparison with the total industry, was minute.
56
57 Q. We referred to Skogsindustrierna. Can I give you a
58 document which is one of Hopkins' references? I am trying
59 to identify which one it is. I have not numbered them
60 actually -- it is the last one on the first page.
