Day 058 - 30 Nov 94 - Page 18
1 range?
2 A. In any one area that has been planted at the same time,
3 they will be approximately the same age range.
4
5 Q. Again with the natural forests as opposed to plantation
6 forests, would it be fair to say that, in general, the
7 flora and fauna are vastly more diverse when you compare a
8 plantation to what you call maybe a similar natural forest?
9 A. I think, Mr. Morris, the word -----
10
11 Q. Is that what scientific opinion is?
12 A. There are scientific opinions which indicate in given
13 areas where there was a natural diversity in the first
14 place about the change that has taken place when
15 monocultures have been established, yes, but it is not true
16 to say that if a small area is cleared and then replanted,
17 that the whole region is affected in a serious way or that
18 the animals and birds to be found in the plantation forest
19 are totally different than they were in the original
20 natural forest. It varies it, but it does not necessarily
21 totally affect it.
22
23 Q. Just to compare the plantation with the natural forests --
24 sorry, just because you mentioned it in that paragraph --
25 many of the monoculture plantations in northern Europe, for
26 example, are not indigenous trees, are they? They are
27 imported varieties?
28 A. In this country that would be a perfectly reasonable
29 statement because the spruce is not an original indigenous
30 tree in this country. But in Finland and Sweden virtually
31 all the natural regeneration and the plantation is based
32 upon a seed stock of those regions. In fact, where they
33 have attempted to introduce certain species from North
34 America they have on the whole had failure.
35
36 Q. So, in the UK they are imported species, in general, in
37 those monoculture plantations?
38 A. This has been the practice over the years, and a
39 practice which, I am sure you will appreciate, is changing
40 quite rapidly now as a great mixture of species are being
41 replanted where the post First World and post Second World
42 War species have been removed.
43
44 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is by design in the sense that it has
45 been decided that is the way to do things, but the
46 opportunity has arisen, presumably, because since anyway
47 the middle 80s, we have been 40 years after the end of the
48 Second World War, so a lot of the planting which was done
49 in the years after the Second World War is now coming to
50 the end of its cycle and they are starting again and have
51 been for the last few years. Is that right or not?
52 A. Yes, I think, my Lord, the situation in our country
53 (and I mean by that England, Scotland and Wales) is very
54 different from Scandinavia because there the natural
55 regeneration on very, very large areas of forests has been
56 an effective way of recovery even where they have done a
57 lot of felling. In this country after the two world wars,
58 the objective was to recover the stock of timber we had,
59 and very large areas of a monoculture were introduced.
60
