Day 158 - 19 Jul 95 - Page 59


     
     1        not saying ever that McDonald's had any cattle raised on
     2        rain forest land.  You cannot raise cattle on a piece of
     3        rain forest land.  You have to cut it down; it has to be
     4        ex-rainforest land.  Our whole case is based upon the use
     5        of cattle grazed on ex-rainforest land and that is what the
     6        argument is all about.  Nobody in their right mind would
     7        argue ----
     8
     9   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You can come back in the morning about this.
    10        Again you do not have to accept my invitation at all, but
    11        what I am inviting you to think about overnight, suppose at
    12        the end of all the argument it was my view that you should
    13        be entitled to have a pleading which was the springboard
    14        for arguing the knock-on effect, but suppose that I did not
    15        think that you had sufficient evidence or hope of evidence
    16        to pass Lord Justice Lord Neill's test far as McDonald's
    17        beef coming from ex-rainforest land, then how would you
    18        plead it.
    19
    20        You have the knock-on effect in your additional sentences
    21        which came at the end of the proposed amendment No. 1, but
    22        it would mean that I was disinclined to allow you to have
    23        the sentence exactly in its presents form, "Plants
    24        supplying McDonald's beef have included those based at
    25        Barretos in Mato Grosso and Goiais", and then this little
    26        part, "Regions including and/or bordering areas of
    27        rain forest land."
    28
    29        What I want you to think about is if I did not think that
    30        there was evidence or expectation of evidence which would
    31        justify an amendment which included words to the effect,
    32        "Regions including and/or bordering areas of rain forest
    33        land", how would you plead it.  You can come back to me in
    34        the morning and answer what Mr. Rampton has said, but it
    35        might help you ultimately to apply your mind to that.
    36
    37   MR. MORRIS:  I cannot see how the Mato Grosso region, for
    38        example, cannot be a region that borders rain forest land.
    39
    40   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It would go something like this, that 80
    41        tonnes of beef from the Mato Grosso is neither here nor
    42        there.
    43
    44   MR. MORRIS:  It is a particular.  It is a particular though.
    45
    46   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, but it would not lead me, if this were
    47        my train of thought, to think that that had any effect on
    48        the rain forest at all, even if it was in Mato Grosso which
    49        had been recently rain forest land, if this is the way
    50        I thought at the end of the day.  Apart from that, because 
    51        the 1,000 kilometres from Barretos is only in relation to 
    52        the 80 tonnes point, your evidence, my conclusion might be, 
    53        is that McDonald's take beef from, among other places, Mato
    54        Grosso Do Sul, that is where the red circle is there, from
    55        Goiais where the red circle is there, but neither of those
    56        red circles include or border areas of ex-rainforest land
    57        on the evidence which I have got at the moment.
    58
    59   MR. MORRIS:  I do not think McDonald's are claiming that all the
    60        beef cattle they get in, for example, the Goiais area is

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