Day 058 - 30 Nov 94 - Page 61


     
     1        Commission going back even before my time as a part-time
     2        commissioner.  Yes, it has progressed and so it should do
     3        all the time.
     4
     5   Q.   But because it is a matter of gradual progression you
     6        cannot say how far back in time your conclusion in the
     7        terms it is written in would apply?
     8        A.  I would just add one point that has impressed me and
     9        that is even under the heading of "Recycling", there is no
    10        doubt in my mind that companies like McDonald's who have
    11        been perhaps subject to environmental pressures in their
    12        own marketplace, have pushed back to the sources of supply
    13        and demanded on the one side recycling and on the other
    14        identification of the source of their materials.  It would
    15        be equally true to say if companies like McDonald's had not
    16        applied such pressure over a period of years, going back
    17        through the process of manufacture of their materials that
    18        they themselves use, the effect and change in environmental
    19        attitudes would not have been as great as it has been.
    20
    21   Q.   I understand that.  It may be that the question I am asking
    22        is one which really cannot be answered, but you see the
    23        words you have actually used under "Conclusion"?  Can I put
    24        it in this way:  Would you have been able to say that at
    25        the beginning of 1989 or not?
    26        A.  Not obviously to the extent that one can say it now.
    27        That is perfectly clear in all the standards on
    28        environmental issues concerned with forestry that have
    29        emerged in international conferences and in national
    30        approaches to the government policy and forest policy as a
    31        whole.  I would have to say and repeat that in 1989
    32        I joined the Forestry Commission and found to my amazement
    33        how everybody was concentrating their efforts on how to
    34        meet the multitudinous uses of the forest which included
    35        environmental issues high on their agenda.  That was in
    36        1989.
    37
    38   MR. MORRIS:  Just forestry practices in Europe, are they
    39        compared to other countries, other areas of the world?  Are
    40        they particularly, in your opinion, of better standards now
    41        after 1989?  Are the standards now better than other
    42        regions of the world?  Are they the best?
    43        A.  Are you asking whether they are progressed faster in
    44        environmental terms?
    45
    46   Q.   No, just the standards.  Your conclusion relates to the
    47        standards, let us say, in the 90s generally in European
    48        forests.  Are the standards better or worse in other
    49        regions, leave aside America and Canada, what about the
    50        rest of the world? 
    51        A.  If you are talking about the Southern Hemisphere, 
    52        tropics and the Boreal forest such as Russia and the like, 
    53        I would have said Europe practices are almost certainly
    54        more sophisticated than many, but there could be no more
    55        sophisticated forestry than that of New Zealand or
    56        Australia. It is extremely well developed and a very
    57        essential part of their economy with a very strong
    58        influence of environmental issues too.
    59
    60   Q.   Do you know where McDonald's (Japan) gets its paper

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