Day 058 - 30 Nov 94 - Page 60
1
2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It was functioning to my certain memory well
3 over 40 years ago, because one used to take packets of
4 newspaper on one's bike down to the plant in town for a bit
5 of pocket money.
6 A. During the war in America I remember as a boy scout
7 collecting vast quantities of paper to be used for
8 recycling and, unfortunately, the people responsible for it
9 allowed the roof to leak and it was totally unusable.
10
11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It goes back a long way. It is a question to
12 what extent.
13 A. It is an idea that has been going on. That is right.
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15 MR. MORRIS: The forestry industry recognises, does it not, well
16 you imply that in your statement, that in recent times the
17 demand for recycled paper has grown under environmental
18 media and political pressure. Is that something that is
19 recognised by the forest industry?
20 A. Yes, it is recognised. I think in the top paragraph
21 which I put in which is perhaps an interesting comment,
22 there is a state of affairs in the economics of it as well
23 as the environmental side where they maybe reach a stage
24 where there is no market for the thinnings of the forest
25 and the top ends of the trees if recycling reaches an
26 outstandingly and completely disproportionate element of
27 the whole of paper usage. I think that is an exaggeration,
28 but it is a danger of which the forestry industry is aware.
29
30 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can I ask you about your conclusion because
31 the matters complained of here are alleged to have been
32 published in late 1989, early 1990, and the conclusion is
33 written in the present tense. We are now in 1994. How far
34 back in time, if your conclusion were correct, would that
35 go - true in 1990, 1986, 1982? I remember perfectly well
36 what you said about 1985, but for how long, in your view,
37 has your conclusion been true?
38 A. I would draw the conclusion from observation and
39 listening to people who are in the industry in specific
40 was. I was extremely impressed with Enso-Guzeit, for
41 example, and their extreme efforts to involve themselves in
42 improving against pollution which is a major concern of the
43 paper industry. They could only do this as they could
44 afford to do it. The same thing applies with forestry,
45 that the intense effort now to balance the environment with
46 economic forestry has come about because the postwar
47 planting has reached a stage where there is a value to it.
48 It has come into the market and, in consequence, it has
49 been possible to reapply techniques of forestry which 10
50 years ago one could not afford.
51
52 What I would say is that this has been a continuing
53 progress, that when I joined the Forestry Commission from
54 the timber industry, not from the paper world, not from the
55 forestry world but from the timber industry, I was very
56 surprised to find out in 1989 how much attention was being
57 paid to changing the pattern of forestry to meet
58 environmental purposes as opposed to economic purposes.
59 That was there and is to me evidentially there in all the
60 records, including the annual reports of the Forestry
