Day 309 - 03 Dec 96 - Page 63
1 Miss Bensilum on one side for a moment -- whose evidence is
2 adduced on behalf of your clients, say that cattle came
3 from areas which were deforested in the 1950s and 1960s you
4 say that cannot be referring to rainforests, it must be
5 referring to some other kind of forest?
6
7 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, that is right. According to what we now know
8 of the geography of Costa Rica -- and where the rainforests
9 actually are, where they have always been, and Professor
10 Janssen is probably the key to this -- because of the
11 geography of the country, they are not on the Pacific side
12 of the country. Guatemala is slightly different, as
13 your Lordship will have noticed. That is what he says, and
14 he is 100 per cent supported by that area handled for Costa
15 Rica which, curiously enough, was published in 1970 which
16 was the year that McDonald's arrived in Costa Rica.
17
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What is the status of that book?
19
20 MR. RAMPTON: That is published by the United States, an arm of
21 the United States government. Dr. Carriere said that it
22 was reliable as a source of information about Costa Rica.
23
24 MR. MORRIS: I do not remember him saying that.
25
26 MR. RAMPTON: He did, I have given the reference.
27
28 MR. MORRIS: He was quite critical about certain parts of it that
29 were put to him, as far as I remember.
30
31 MR. RAMPTON: It is one of those works which we say is an
32 authoritative work of reference, and for this purpose it
33 probably does not matter that it is published by an arm of
34 the United States government but that probably helps, which
35 falls within E, F and G although it is a foreign document,
36 of our submission about this on page 20 of the written
37 submissions.
38
39 It has the same sort of status, we would suggest, as, for
40 example, the Surgeon General report or the World Health
41 Organisation, something of that character. Or the forest
42 book, the fat forest book that is in the yellow file behind
43 Mr. Kouchokus's statement which is published by the USDA,
44 I think, the forestry service.
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If I can go to recycling and waste. Meaning
47 C, perhaps it shows the artificiality of trying to divide
48 up into separate boxes completely, economic imperialism,
49 destruction of the rainforest and recycling and waste.
50
51 MR. RAMPTON: I quite agree.
52
53 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But meaning C, I would see as really more
54 part of rainforest than anything specifically to do
55 with-----
56
57 MR. RAMPTON: Except for the bit about fast-food packaging
58 materials, which is in the actual leaflet; that is the
59 problem with it. The leaflet does not distinguish between
60 destruction of the rainforest and the environmental damage
