Day 158 - 19 Jul 95 - Page 59
1 not saying ever that McDonald's had any cattle raised on
2 rain forest land. You cannot raise cattle on a piece of
3 rain forest land. You have to cut it down; it has to be
4 ex-rainforest land. Our whole case is based upon the use
5 of cattle grazed on ex-rainforest land and that is what the
6 argument is all about. Nobody in their right mind would
7 argue ----
8
9 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You can come back in the morning about this.
10 Again you do not have to accept my invitation at all, but
11 what I am inviting you to think about overnight, suppose at
12 the end of all the argument it was my view that you should
13 be entitled to have a pleading which was the springboard
14 for arguing the knock-on effect, but suppose that I did not
15 think that you had sufficient evidence or hope of evidence
16 to pass Lord Justice Lord Neill's test far as McDonald's
17 beef coming from ex-rainforest land, then how would you
18 plead it.
19
20 You have the knock-on effect in your additional sentences
21 which came at the end of the proposed amendment No. 1, but
22 it would mean that I was disinclined to allow you to have
23 the sentence exactly in its presents form, "Plants
24 supplying McDonald's beef have included those based at
25 Barretos in Mato Grosso and Goiais", and then this little
26 part, "Regions including and/or bordering areas of
27 rain forest land."
28
29 What I want you to think about is if I did not think that
30 there was evidence or expectation of evidence which would
31 justify an amendment which included words to the effect,
32 "Regions including and/or bordering areas of rain forest
33 land", how would you plead it. You can come back to me in
34 the morning and answer what Mr. Rampton has said, but it
35 might help you ultimately to apply your mind to that.
36
37 MR. MORRIS: I cannot see how the Mato Grosso region, for
38 example, cannot be a region that borders rain forest land.
39
40 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It would go something like this, that 80
41 tonnes of beef from the Mato Grosso is neither here nor
42 there.
43
44 MR. MORRIS: It is a particular. It is a particular though.
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, but it would not lead me, if this were
47 my train of thought, to think that that had any effect on
48 the rain forest at all, even if it was in Mato Grosso which
49 had been recently rain forest land, if this is the way
50 I thought at the end of the day. Apart from that, because
51 the 1,000 kilometres from Barretos is only in relation to
52 the 80 tonnes point, your evidence, my conclusion might be,
53 is that McDonald's take beef from, among other places, Mato
54 Grosso Do Sul, that is where the red circle is there, from
55 Goiais where the red circle is there, but neither of those
56 red circles include or border areas of ex-rainforest land
57 on the evidence which I have got at the moment.
58
59 MR. MORRIS: I do not think McDonald's are claiming that all the
60 beef cattle they get in, for example, the Goiais area is
