Day 056 - 28 Nov 94 - Page 31
1 the area which may be 10 hectares, but still allowing
2 regeneration from standing trees that remain in the
3 surrounding forest. Now, I think the practice is much more
4 to leave individual trees right through the area of that
5 coupe.
6
7 Q. But the general practice for the last 30, 40 years has been
8 in most of the countries, or all the countries, on your
9 list that when the trees become mature (which, obviously,
10 does not happen all at the same time) they are then logged;
11 that is the aim of the plantation forest, is that correct?
12 A. Again it is easier to generalise but difficult to be
13 correct with the generalisation, because if you take
14 Scandinavia, Sweden and Finland, in particular, with
15 average coups of two hectares, no more, it has long been
16 their practice to allow natural regeneration. That natural
17 regeneration, obviously, depends on there being seed
18 trees. How they have done it; whether it has been close to
19 an area cut or by leaving individual trees in the coupe has
20 been a practice which has changed and evolved over the
21 years. I would have said they have been doing it for 10 or
22 15 years, frankly.
23
24 Q. Let us put it another way so as to get it simple: In most
25 of the plantations, managed plantations, for most of the
26 time since the Second World War, say, there is a far less
27 percentage -- possibly even as low as, you know, less than
28 one per cent or something -- of over mature trees than
29 would otherwise be in a forest that is just left to its own
30 devices. You know what I am trying to say though, if you
31 could help me with saying what the situation is?
32 A. I am trying to answer it in a way which is accurate as
33 well as constructive because, in effect, I have got figures
34 to show that there are more trees over 100 years of age and
35 more trees over 140 years of age in Finnish forests now
36 than there were 10 years ago. Now, these statistics are
37 produced by a Forest Service that has been surveying this
38 problem, knowing that environmental concern about mature
39 trees was becoming more and more real.
40
41 Q. But forgetting Finland and Sweden specifically, can we say
42 that throughout the majority of the countries which you
43 have identified, or for the majority of time since the
44 Second World War, the practice has not been to allow trees
45 to develop beyond maturity?
46 A. In the case -----
47
48 Q. Would that be a fair summary of the situation?
49 A. One has to say "yes" and "no" because there are certain
50 areas where all the forestry resource which is supplying
51 their industry is, in fact, from mature forest, and that
52 particularly applies to West Coast America and Canada where
53 existing forest is the current resource.
54
55 The replantations that have occurred as areas have been
56 cleared have not yet matured, and it will not be for
57 another 20 or 30 years that that part of the world can be
58 dependent, not on the original forest, but on plantation
59 forest as its resource. As far as the UK is concerned, our
60 planting (which has actually doubled the amount of forest
