Day 241 - 26 Apr 96 - Page 28
1 which make it clear that the issue is not just about the,
2 or what is put to be the strict definition of rainforest
3 that it is about all tropical forests and that is basically
4 what everybody understood by rainforest when they used the
5 term rainforest and that includes McDonald's. It is really
6 just a point. The general point that I want to make is
7 that I am a bit concerned that evidence is being restricted
8 at this stage as to, because of a kind of decision or
9 whatever on what the issues are when not all the evidence
10 has been heard.
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What I said has nothing to do with what the
13 issues are. What I said was this. It is important for me
14 I, can see that it is relevant for me to know when a
15 witness is in the witness box what they mean when they say
16 rainforest because otherwise I cannot be confident I am
17 understanding their evidence accurately. But what they
18 cannot do is give evidence of what they understood
19 rainforest means when they read the leaflet, and by
20 extension, they cannot give evidence of what an ordinary
21 reader of the leaflet would mean rainforest to mean. So
22 long as rainforest is an ordinary English word and not a
23 word which one requires specialised knowledge to interpret
24 and in my view one does not need specialised knowledge to
25 interpret what rainforest means.
26
27 MS. STEEL: Well-----
28
29 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is an ordinary English word.
30
31 MS. STEEL: I am not entirely sure that it is or that it is
32 used in that way. From what I understand of the situation
33 is that throughout the period of concern in the 70's and
34 80's an still now, that every time, virtually every time
35 anyone was talking about rainforest they were actually
36 talking about all tropical forests and they were just
37 calling it under the umbrella of rainforests.
38
39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You can place that argument if you wish, but
40 I have difficulty with that because some of the witnesses
41 speak about rainforests in contra distinction to tropical
42 forest. Or speak about rain or moist forests tropical
43 forest in contra distinction to dry tropical forest. In
44 fact I spent a bit of time yesterday going through the
45 witnesses and making some notes of my own as to where it
46 appeared anyway, that rainforest did not in their
47 terminology for the purposes of their statement, mean all
48 tropical forest. It may be that you will be able to point
49 to other witnesses who use the-- where you think you can
50 argue, "look, in that witness' statement" or "in that
51 witness' evidence" they use rainforest to cover all
52 tropical forests whether wet moist or dry.
53
54 But the point at the moment is that I do not, subject to
55 being persuaded, that I am wrong to think that rainforest
56 is a word which one needs specialist knowledge to
57 interpret.
58
59 MS. STEEL: It is not so much specialist knowledge to
60 interpret, but it is an awareness of the fact that the word
