Day 073 - 13 Jan 95 - Page 29
1
2 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, may I understand, is the suggestion to be
3 that McDonald's are responsible for the decision of the
4 people who planted those trees? Is that what I understand
5 the position to be?
6
7 MR. MORRIS: It is a question for comment, is it not,
8 Mr. Rampton?
9
10 MR. RAMPTON: I wonder what the suggestion is made about it.
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12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is just this. The picture I got from
13 Mr. Mallinson, Mr. Hopkins may agree or not agree.
14 Granted. Let us suppose for a moment that it were
15 established that McDonald's were using paper products which
16 had come from timber taken from coniferous forestation
17 which has followed the extensive deforestation which
18 followed the First and Second World Wars, where do I go
19 from there? Mr. Mallinson said that as those forests are
20 being harvested a more sensible attitude is being taken.
21 One might assume from that that use of the timber from
22 those forests is leading to an improvement rather than
23 something else?
24 A. I would not agree. I agree that there is now a change
25 in the structure of forests, and the Forestry Authority is
26 trying to get some variation in age species into their
27 plantations. These are the ones they own. This is not
28 necessarily a privately held forest land. There is still
29 plantation going on, in fact, in the flow countries, as far
30 as I know; private, not public, private forestry is going
31 on in flow countries of Scotland. I know this only by
32 second hand because I have a company who are trying to sell
33 me bits of woodland, who say, "Unlike the other people, we
34 will not advise you to buy in the flow country and plant in
35 the flow country. It is not economically on".
36
37 It seems that, yes, there are improvements, but things are
38 not good yet, and if you really wanted to get back to a
39 good situation you would be converting your coniferous
40 forests back into broad leaf forests. If you wanted to do
41 the environmentally correct thing, that is what you would
42 be doing. That is not happening. The plantations are
43 being modified, not eliminated. Plantation on new land is
44 still happening in Scotland. People are trying to sell me
45 bits of it.
46
47 MR. MORRIS: So, in terms of your comment on page 23 regarding
48 Scotland -----
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50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am not suggesting you ask any question
51 about it, but for completeness, when I gave you references
52 to general statements about paper products sourced from
53 various areas having an adverse effect, I omitted 6.7.4.,
54 which was England.
55
56 MR. MORRIS: Is your position for Scotland and for England
57 roughly the same?
58 A. Well, that it affects the environment and biodiversity
59 to use material from there.
60
