Day 158 - 19 Jul 95 - Page 27


     
     1   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.  My recollection is that Brazil is the first
     2        country that opened up outside the US, but I might have
     3        that wrong.  Anyway, if we go on to over the page, under
     4        "Environmental impact", which is the second paragraph:
     5        "Nearly all the deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon
     6        (variously estimated at between eight and 12 per cent of
     7        the forest area) is directly, if not always indirectly, the
     8        result of cattle ranching.  Ranching may, as stated above,
     9        be the first cause of deforestation or it may be the final
    10        cause, the ranchers clearing the land after it has been
    11        opened by timber cutters or colonists."
    12
    13        Then we come to the middle paragraph starting:  "A further
    14        aspect:  A further aspect is the clearance of cerrado
    15        forest in states such as Mato Grosso for soya beans, much
    16        of which goes to feed cattle in Brazil, the United States
    17        and Europe.  The cerrado is also highly diverse, and its
    18        clearance leads to significant losses of biodiversity."
    19
    20        It is our belief that there are some areas to the south of
    21        the Amazon Basin, the Amazon frontier, the Amazon region,
    22        which includes cerrado forest which is also highly diverse
    23        and its clearance leads to significant losses of
    24        biodiversity, as stated there.
    25
    26        I did not want to bring in the whole of the soya bean issue
    27        because I felt that needed to be tackled separately when
    28        I have prepared properly on that.
    29
    30        He says:  "Cattle ranching outside the Amazon is the
    31        principal reason for the movement of peasants into the
    32        Amazon".  That is a direct reference in our pleading, in
    33        our proposed pleading.  "This is because so much land has
    34        been taken over by cattle ranchers elsewhere in Brazil that
    35        the forests are the only place available for peasant
    36        agriculture.  Land concentration in Brazil is extreme, and
    37        most of the largest properties take the form of cattle
    38        ranches.  It is my opinion, as well as that of many
    39        environmentalists and some government ministers in Brazil,
    40        that the only means of stopping the flow of colonists to
    41        the Amazon and the destruction of forests they cause there
    42        is a massive programme of agrarian reform, with ranch land
    43        outside the Amazon redistributed for more
    44        productive peasant agriculture" and, by implication, not
    45        cattle ranching.
    46
    47        Hence, the use of beef raised on ranch land outside the
    48        Amazon region, which McDonald's have admitted, is the
    49        principal reason, according to our expert, Mr. Monbiot, for
    50        the movement of peasants into the Amazon.  It would be 
    51        logical that the nearer the regions are outside the Amazon, 
    52        the nearer they are to the Amazon, the more likely, of 
    53        course, that the people will go into the Amazon, especially
    54        if all the areas below them to the south are used for
    55        cattle ranching which McDonald's say they are.
    56
    57        So here we have all the regions bordering the Amazon
    58        region, according to McDonald's, four main regions which is
    59        the Paraguay flood plain -- this is for Barretos -- which,
    60        in fact, goes into Mato Grosso which, we would contend, is

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