Day 284 - 22 Oct 96 - Page 33


     
     1        stirs up much more fuss if you use rainforest rather than
     2        tropical forest, then you are stuck with that really, are
     3        you not?  It has much more impact if you use rainforest,
     4        they say.  Then you are stuck with that.
     5
     6   MR. MORRIS:   The point is, the words tropical forest and
     7        rainforest are interchangeable so far as the public is
     8        concerned.
     9
    10   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Well, that is for me to decide.
    11
    12   MR. MORRIS:   That is the way I understand it.  And evidence
    13        obviously --
    14
    15   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   One witness, I cut him short, but he got as
    16        far as saying we use the word rainforest, and carefully
    17        explained what we mean by rainforest.
    18
    19   MR. MORRIS:   Yes, that is what I believe this leaflet does, it
    20        says here 'lush green belt of incredibly beautiful tropical
    21        forests around the equator'.
    22
    23   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   That could refer, could it not, to
    24        rainforest proper, that particular eco system where it
    25        produces its own clouds and its own rain.
    26
    27   MR. MORRIS:   It does not limit it in any way, what it says is
    28        that the lush green belt around the equator of tropical
    29        forest...  Tropical forest is what we are talking about.
    30        'The one that supports a billion people dependent on water
    31        flowing from those forests', et cetera et cetera.  And
    32        which the whole of the Amazonia, for example, would be part
    33        of.  Because of that referred to in the paragraph above.
    34        If I note also, the hundred million years in Dr. Ratta's
    35        statement about Sarado, which includes tropical forest as
    36        well as other vegetation, he talks about a hundred billion
    37        years of untouched development and so we have a concern
    38        about diversity around the tropics, and that is really what
    39        this is about.  If lush green biodiverse vegetation is
    40        destroyed within the tropics by the hamburger industry then
    41        that is what this pamphlet is concerned about.
    42
    43        That is what Charles Secrett said the rainforest campaign
    44        that he initiated, which put the whole subject on the map,
    45        was about, was about all tropical forests.  I doubt if a
    46        great deal of public were aware about tropical forests
    47        until around that time.  It became a campaigning issue and
    48        all our experts have given evidence on definition of their
    49        area of concern and what rainforest and tropical forest
    50        means to them.  And not only did none of them agree with 
    51        McDonald's artificial construct of what rainforest means, 
    52        but I think they all strongly, strongly, opposed that 
    53        definition as being what the area of concern is when people
    54        use the word 'rainforest'.
    55
    56   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   To what extent am I, since English is my
    57        native tongue, entitled to say I just can't see rainforest
    58        including dry forest, even if it is within the tropics,
    59        because the two are contradictions in terms, whatever any
    60        expert tells me.  If an expert tells me that dry forest is

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