Day 284 - 22 Oct 96 - Page 22
1 erosion would be part of the defamatory allegations and --
2 well, that is linked to the becoming "useless for
3 agriculture", as well. "The bare earth, baked by the
4 tropical sun, becomes useless for agriculture."
5
6 Then the next line: "It has been estimated that this
7 destruction causes at least one species of animal, plant or
8 insect to become extinct every few hours". So that is
9 another distinct allegation about damage by diversity which
10 McDonald's have not pleaded.
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, my reaction is that they have really
13 because they have --
14
15 MR. MORRIS: Wanton damage.
16
17 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Wanton damage to the environment and these
18 are but illustrations of the nature of the wanton damage to
19 the environment.
20
21 MR. MORRIS: Right. The next paragraph.... I am going to come
22 back to meaning a bit later. We are just going through the
23 defamatory non-pleaded sections. The next paragraph talks
24 about tropical forests and talks about the planet's crucial
25 supply of oxygen being affected. That comes under wanton
26 damage, I suppose.
27
28 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
29
30 MR. MORRIS: As far as the next paragraph is concerned, we do
31 not consider the reference to pet food and fast food
32 packaging materials relevant to McDonald's in terms of that
33 being a reason for destruction of rainforests.
34
35 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, that might be said is where McDonald's
36 get wanton in their meaning, because you might damage
37 rainforest for various reasons. If you cut down an acre of
38 rainforest and build a hospital for people there, it might
39 be said that is not wanton damage. If you cut it down to
40 make fast food packaging, it might be said it is wanton.
41 So I think that probably goes back to it being wanton, you
42 see. That is the way I see it at the moment.
43
44 MR. MORRIS: Well --
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If you damage something beautiful for a
47 trivial reason, it can be more easily said that it is
48 wanton damage.
49
50 MR. MORRIS: Yes, but, I mean, all I am saying is that
51 obviously McDonald's do not produce pet food and that is
52 part of a sentence about what many US corporations are
53 doing in Central America, and I am saying that the
54 McDonald's role would be with the burgers, whereas other
55 corporations must be responsible for using materials from
56 Central America for pet food and fast food packaging
57 materials.
58
59 Under "colonial invasion", they have not complained about
60 this, but the effective result of this economic activity is
