Day 284 - 22 Oct 96 - Page 32
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2 So that is all I have to say from his opening speech. I am
3 sorry that was a bit of a digression.
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5 MS. STEEL: I don't know whether it is something that has been
6 switched. I was trying to make some notes from the computer
7 but it is all going off the end of the screen. I don't
8 know if anyone else has the same problem or not.
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10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Is the computer being given to you to use
11 for your note or not?
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13 MS. STEEL: I am trying to copy something down.
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15 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yours has gone over to the right, has it?
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17 MR. MORRIS: Yes.
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19 MR JUSTICE BELL: Can you do a quick swap?
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21 MS. STEEL: That one is the same.
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23 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Let us pause. (Pause) Now, let us carry
24 on.
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26 MR. MORRIS: Now, as far as the word 'rainforest', what does it
27 mean? First of all, looking at the test in the leaflet,
28 in the first box, 50 acres every minute, which is the first
29 time this issue really has been brought in, it does mention
30 the word rainforest but it specifically relates there to --
31 well, it goes on to talk about Amazonia, again without
32 distinguishing which part of Amazonia is relevant, which is
33 not relevant. So again the concern is with the whole of
34 Amazonia which, as I understand it, and evidence was given,
35 is the area which is the general geographic basin in which
36 the tributaries of the Amazon and tributaries of those
37 tributaries run into the Amazon and the vegetation around
38 those. And it talks again, as I said before, about one
39 billion people depending on water flowing from these
40 forests, which again to me, on a common sense basis, would
41 refer to all tropical forests.
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43 And then we come to under the heading, 'Why is it wrong for
44 McDonald's to destroy rainforests'. Really, this is like
45 the definition of what we are talking about. The first
46 paragraph there, we would say, is the definition of the
47 problem. Around the equator there is a lush green belt of
48 incredibly beautiful tropical forest untouched by human
49 development for one hundred million years supporting about
50 half of all earth's life forms, including some thirty
51 thousand plant species, and producing a major part of the
52 planet's crucial supply of oxygen.
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54 To me, that obviously reads as a definition of rainforests,
55 implying that all tropical forests -- explaining, defining
56 that as all tropical forests.
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58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Why not say tropical forests in the
59 headline? If the answer to that is, as more than one
60 witness either expressly or implicitly says, because it
