Day 073 - 13 Jan 95 - Page 36
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What are you getting from this, Mr. Hopkins,
2 because you may just be able to say it.
3 A. I will say it. Quite honestly, that because of various
4 pressures the Finnish -- sorry, the Czech government or the
5 Czech forest industry was cutting beyond what they called
6 sustained yield. In other words, they were cutting their
7 forests down faster than the cubic volume grew each year.
8 This is considered generally a very bad thing to do, partly
9 because of having norms set by the State of how much timber
10 should be produced which were in excess of the natural
11 regenerative capacity of their forests.
12
13 MR. MORRIS: That is backed up by this reference?
14 A. That is backed up by this reference.
15
16 Q. Is there one or two sentences that could -----
17
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If that is what it says, unless in due course
19 Mr. Rampton wants to challenge it, I would leave it there.
20 A. There is also another point from that document. I am
21 going to say it directly from here because the English
22 translation is not always very good. "Meanwhile, the share
23 of productively efficient hardwoods is decreasing, so that
24 the planned proportion of 'biological' woods providing for
25 the resistance of forthcoming forest generation is not
26 attained".
27
28 What they are saying there is there is a major problem of
29 acid rain pollution in that part of the Czech Republic, it
30 is now, and it is important in forestry to try to keep your
31 genetic source of your trees because they are more adapted
32 to the locality. It looks like they are cutting far too
33 extensively into what they call the biological woods which
34 I understand to mean the genetic bank of local species
35 which are adapted to the area and, therefore, tend on the
36 whole to thrive better than species from outside.
37
38 Q. Maybe we will move on then from that. I do not know if it
39 will help the court, but on Canada you identified some
40 photographs about the effect of the clear cutting, yes?
41 A. Indeed, yes.
42
43 Q. It may help if the court can view that. Mr. Rampton has
44 already had a chance to view. If you can show the Judge,
45 in reality, what large scale clear cutting effects are.
46 I think you identified to me pages 1, 4, 6, 148, 152 and
47 following pages. I will read them out: 146, 148, 152,
48 154, 156, 158, 160 and 164.
49 A. OK. I am not certain how I handle this, my Lord,
50 because I am dealing with -----
51
52 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, first it might be useful if by reference
53 to those pages, assuming they are the coloured pictures,
54 are they ---
55
56 THE WITNESS: They are.
57
58 MR. RAMPTON: -- one could be told what are the precise
59 locations because each picture has a caption and a little
60 article at the side.
