Day 073 - 13 Jan 95 - Page 21


     
     1        balance of probabilities McDonald's paper or paperboard
     2        packaging, or some of it, comes from pulp, from timber from
     3        Scottish forests, you have Mr. Hopkins saying at 6.10.2
     4        that has an adverse effect on the environment.  The same
     5        reasoning could apply to 7.4.2 to which I referred a few
     6        minutes ago at the bottom of page 28, USA:  "Paper sourced
     7        from the USA is thus damaging to the environment".  8.10.1
     8        Sweden; 9.6.2 Finland; 10.2 Czechoslovakia and 11.3.2
     9        Canada.
    10
    11        In so far as at the end of the day it appears on balance of
    12        probabilities that McDonald's use paper products sourced
    13        from any of those countries, on the face of those very
    14        general statements, you could infer that McDonald's have a
    15        responsibility for damaging the environment when we are
    16        looking at forests.
    17
    18        So, for instance, in my view, it might be useful (and
    19        really I embarked on it a few minutes ago) to look at
    20        whether Mr. Hopkins is actually saying damage to the
    21        environment in the sense that "a cultivated and tended
    22        forest cannot contain all the biological qualities and
    23        variations that are to be found in the natural forest".
    24        See the Skogsindustrierna press release of October 1992, to
    25        which you have referred, or in some more extensive way,
    26        because he said "any paper products", which, on the face of
    27        it, would mean that if I bought one book which had leaves
    28        in it which had once been part of a tree somewhere in
    29        Canada, I would have a responsibility for damaging the
    30        environment.
    31
    32        I have taken that as an extreme example in the hope that --
    33        do you see?
    34
    35   MR. MORRIS:  Yes, I think Mr. Hopkins -----
    36
    37   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Is that it, or is there much more to it than
    38        that?  That is what I need to know.
    39
    40   MR. MORRIS:  I think Mr. Hopkins has dealt with it.  He has put
    41        the case for plantation forests.  Mr. Rampton made a great
    42        long speech about me going line by line through the paper,
    43        the statement, which I have not even quoted one line of it
    44        yet; I did not intend to do that.  In fact, I think
    45        Mr. Hopkins in his statement and in the things he has
    46        already said has dealt with the case against plantation
    47        forests and also the management of those forests certainly
    48        up to, he indicated 1990, for example, in this country.
    49
    50   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Fair enough; as long as you appreciate what 
    51        I am looking at. 
    52 
    53   MR. MORRIS:  I think he has dealt with the old growth issue or
    54        semi-natural or ancient woodland or natural forests,
    55        whatever, that that was the No. 1 environmental priority to
    56        protect those.  So where logging is going on in those
    57        forests, that is clearly, he has stated, something to be
    58        avoided like the plague.  So, I felt we had dealt with the
    59        general picture.  It was only really, I was going to look
    60        at some specific references to look at maybe particular

Prev Next Index