Day 286 - 24 Oct 96 - Page 30


     
     1        that, for example, the Nicoya Peninsula is all moist forest
     2        or wet forest.  The Tozey map, which is the most accurate
     3        on life zones, defines the whole of the Nicoya Peninsula as
     4        tropical moist forest or pre-montain wet forest.  And that
     5        is one of the areas McDonald's have said was supplying
     6        them.
     7
     8        And if we check that with the deforestation map, the Sader
     9        and Joyce map from the tropical rainforests book, the
    10        Nicoya Peninsula, and I think Dr. Carriere adopted this,
    11        these progressive deforestation, this information, that the
    12        Nicoya Peninsula was largely deforested between 1950 and
    13        1961, exactly when McDonald's says the ranches were
    14        established that were supplying them.  And the area around
    15        Liberia in the Tozey map, which McDonald's have said they
    16        received supplies from, is characterised as pre-montain
    17        moist forest, as a life zone, and although that may have
    18        been deforested at an earlier date, according to the
    19        deforestation maps.  So the point that I am trying to make
    20        is that McDonald's have a fundamental contradiction at the
    21        centre of their case on Costa Rica, in their own words.
    22
    23   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Yes.
    24
    25   MR. MORRIS:   Can I also say that the underneath the Sader and
    26        Joyce map the note read, and it was read out to the court:
    27        Besides primary forest shown in black, much degraded and
    28        regrowth forest also occurred, eg for 1983 the map shows
    29        that 17 percent of primary forest cover but 33.5 percent of
    30        the country had forest of some kind.  By 1983 only rugged
    31        montain rainforests remained relatively undisturbed.
    32
    33        So what we are saying the expert opinion is, and I think
    34        Mr. Secrett said this in the witness box as well about
    35        Costa Rica, was that the deforestation is greater than the
    36        maps indicate and continues after, it looks like an area of
    37        deforestation, sorry, where there is a wide area - this is
    38        what Charles Secrett said about it - for example the San
    39        Isidro area, that the deforestation in the San Isidro area
    40        would have continued beyond the indications that mere maps
    41        would show.
    42
    43        And also John Carriere made that point very clear, that the
    44        farms are established at a time, but those farms include
    45        large tracts of forested areas and the farms expand the
    46        cattle ranching area over a long period of time.  I don't
    47        know how long he said.  So the deforestation continues
    48        within and by the established farms.  That is another line,
    49        we say, McDonald's have invented to confuse the issue, the
    50        established farms issue, bearing in mind that the farms 
    51        were established in the 1950s, so they were hardly long 
    52        established anyway.  But the deforestation would have 
    53        continued on those farms into the '60s, '70s and '80s, as
    54        well, until, as we have heard, there was some sea change in
    55        Costa Rica where governmental policy changed.
    56
    57   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Yes.
    58
    59   MR. MORRIS:   If, and this is where the plaintiffs have the
    60        centre of their contradiction, on one hand they are  saying

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