Day 239 - 23 Apr 96 - Page 33


     
     1
     2   Q.   Yes.  What would you think I meant if I said evergreen
     3        hydrophytic?
     4        A.   Hydrophytic?
     5
     6   Q.   Yes?
     7        A.   It would be a wet evergreen forest.
     8
     9   Q.   Yes?
    10        A.   Yes.
    11
    12   Q.   A rainforest?
    13        A.   Rainforest, as I say, is a broad and popular term and
    14        that would be one of the forest types that would be
    15        included in it.
    16
    17   Q.   What the populous, Mr. Monbiot, would understand by the
    18        word "rainforest" is a matter for his Lordship, as I think
    19        you understood.  You have read far more text books than I
    20        ever have, but am I right in thinking that, on the whole,
    21        writers of textbooks, whether ecologists or botanists,
    22        distinguish four different categories of tropical forest,
    23        broad categories, subdivided into submontane, premontane,
    24        montane and so on and so forth.  But from the point of view
    25        of the type of vegetation, four types; tropical dry forest,
    26        tropical moist forest, tropical wet forest and tropical
    27        rainforest.  Am I right?
    28        A.   It depends which sources you read.  Some people will
    29        make those divisions; other people will divide it along
    30        wholly different lines.  The rainforest science is a
    31        relatively new one and the classification is still
    32        comparatively new.  So there is no single set of terms.
    33
    34   Q.   Have you heard it said, for instance, that a rainforest is
    35        essentially a nonseasonal forest where rainfall is both
    36        abundant and constant?
    37        A.  I am sure that is one definition of one type of forest
    38        which certainly fits into that category.  I would point out
    39        to you that temperate rainforests in the west of the United
    40        States would not fit into that category, but are widely
    41        called by many scientists "rainforests".
    42
    43   Q.   But we are talking about tropical or near-tropical
    44        rainforests, are we not?
    45        A.  Yes.
    46
    47   Q.   What about a definition which said that must have a minimum
    48        of 80" of rainfall in a year?
    49        A.   Well, this is another definition but, as I say, there
    50        are almost as many definitions as there are types of 
    51        rainforest and you cannot set hard and fast rules, 
    52        especially with a term which is not generally regarded as a 
    53        scientific one.
    54
    55   Q.   If scientific textbooks use those terms, as I have
    56        suggested they do; dry, moist, wet and rainforest, there
    57        would be a purpose for that, would there not?  It is a
    58        useful thing in science to have precise definitions, is it
    59        not?
    60        A.  Science technique is to try to classify and to put

Prev Next Index