Day 058 - 30 Nov 94 - Page 53
1 need for the extraction relevant to this case to involve
2 severe cases of erosion.
3
4 MR. MORRIS: Basically, never mind new practices now and new
5 concerns, say 40 years between 1945 and 1985, was soil
6 erosion a problem that was fairly -- has it been a
7 problem?
8
9 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If you are suggesting that there are areas
10 from which timber is taken from which pulp is created, from
11 which packaging is created for use by McDonald's where soil
12 erosion is a problem, then put it.
13
14 MR. MORRIS: Yes. I will put it to you that there has been some
15 problem of soil erosion caused by intensive harvesting of
16 forests in the countries which you have identified that are
17 relevant to this case, say, going back from before the
18 1980s?
19 A. Well, unquestionably one could find areas where bad
20 practices have applied. If you go back far enough where
21 considerations of erosion and because responsibility for
22 the future of the forest lands did not remain with the
23 companies doing the extraction, there will have been
24 abuses. There cannot be any question that that is a
25 progress from the state of affairs that used to apply,
26 particularly in the immediate postwar period when you had
27 actions of forestation on areas which were not previously
28 forested. But I would also point out that the fact that
29 certain areas were not planted originally in the uplands of
30 most countries I state, historical deforestation followed
31 by extensive grazing by animals with little in the way of
32 input, has gradually led to soil degradation. Further
33 down, "Generally trees are planted on sloping land to
34 prevent soil erosion."
35
36 Now the planting of trees on sloping land is a protection.
37 The question is, what happens if they reach maturity, is
38 there any real danger that people will bring the thing back
39 to further soil erosion? My contention is that these are
40 not the areas that would be likely to be a main source of
41 supply for packaging material.
42
43 MR. MORRIS: What about in the USA and Canada, is there a
44 greater problem in your estimation of soil erosion in those
45 countries?
46 A. Yes, because a lot of the mountainous country on the
47 West Coast of America and Canada can present foresters with
48 that problem. There is no doubt that those areas now which
49 are watersheds and those areas which are subject to this
50 kind of degradation, are being protected and they were not
51 being protected 15, 20 years ago.
52
53 Q. Moving on to water pollution, I think we have covered some
54 of this. The problem of conifers, conifers have a
55 particular property, do they not, of -- I cannot remember
56 the word really -- attracting ----
57 A. Scavenging I think.
58
59 Q. Can you just explain how they are responsible for
60 increasing acidification in the area around in the water
