Day 239 - 23 Apr 96 - Page 38
1 stands quite that far.
2
3 Q. The bottom of what used to be called Pheonix Arabia is, I
4 assure you, within the northern Tropic of Cancer. Trees
5 growing there would not be described as tropical
6 rainforest, would they?
7 A. It depends on the formation of forest. The Sahara is
8 not all great sand dunes and there are bits of Sahelian
9 region which would not be far from one's ideal of a
10 tropical rainforest. It depends where you are, but
11 certainly not the little clumps of palms around the sort of
12 B-movie oasis, no.
13
14 Q. One last thing, Mr. Monbiot, and then I have finished. You
15 saw that area, just by way of example, to the northeast of
16 Sinop which as I told you -- everybody can measure it -- is
17 roughly 150 kilometers long and 50 kilometres broad. It
18 looks a bit like a kidney bean. We do not know when it was
19 cut down, if it ever was. We know it was agricultural
20 land, at any rate, when this map was made. How long would
21 it take, if that had once been rainforest, whatever
22 definition you choose to use, how long would it take for an
23 area of that size to regenerate?
24 A. It depends on a very large number of factors. I will
25 suggest what some of those factors are. The first would be
26 whether the land is recleared and maintained as a ranch or
27 pasture, i.e. whether burning and pesticides are used. The
28 second would depend on what reserves of forest there were
29 surrounding it and so whether or not they could easily set
30 seed and reinvade. A third factor would be the vectors of
31 seed i.e. whether there were certain species of bird and
32 mammals which could carry seed into it. Again, like so
33 many of these issues, there is huge amount of variability.
34 But a general rule you can say, if you leave it, if it was
35 a forest area it is likely to revert to one relatively
36 quickly. If you keep knocking back the vegetation, it will
37 take a very long time.
38
39 Q. Can you just look at it? Can you see it has got a river
40 running around it and again I am afraid I am going to
41 pronounce the R. It has Rio Manissaua-Micu running through
42 it?
43 A. I see it.
44
45 Q. The top of the river anyway. Just suppose that it is
46 surrounded by trees of one kind or another and suppose, and
47 again we have absolutely no idea, but suppose it had once
48 been trees itself and they were cut down, let us say in
49 1965 and suppose, I do not know this is so, but just
50 suppose then you had cattle on it for 15 years. It had to
51 be a bit longer to 1983, call it 20 years if you like and
52 then you removed the cattle. You let it lie fallow. You
53 did not do anything else to it. You kept it the same size.
54 How long would it take for it to regenerate?
55 A. I am afraid in all honesty I cannot give you a
56 reasonable figure, for the simple reason that there are so
57 many variables which I have mentioned and it depends
58 whether there is forest nearby which can seed it. As I
59 say, it depends what sort of processes they were using to
60 maintain the forest open; vectors. I mean, honestly, I
