Day 158 - 19 Jul 95 - Page 53


     
     1        suppose I am against him on that.
     2
     3   MR. RAMPTON:  I was not going to address your Lordship on that.
     4
     5   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  There is really no evidence that Amazon
     6        frontier means that everything over the red line was
     7        rain forest, that I am not very impressed with a Collins'
     8        Atlas where I just do not know the basis for it at all.
     9        But what he is saying is it does not matter if you are some
    10        way away from the rain forest, if you are feeding beef in
    11        the country, it has this knock on down the line effect viz.
    12        Mr. Monbiot.  At the end of the day, I may or may not think
    13        much of that but is it not at least arguable?
    14
    15   MR. RAMPTON:  It is arguable in the sense that it is an
    16        interesting general proposition but, my Lord, this is
    17        supposed to be a defence to an action by McDonald's; it is
    18        not supposed to be a seminar in environmental studies.
    19        I do notice, for all their claims to be environmentalists,
    20        how remarkably ignorant the Defendants seem to be about
    21        this subject, but there it is.
    22
    23   MR. MORRIS:  I object strongly to that ---
    24
    25   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord -----
    26
    27   MR. MORRIS:  -- the Bar Council prohibits insulting remarks from
    28        members of the Bar against other parties.
    29
    30   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, quite right, I withdraw it and apologise.  My
    31        Lord, that being so, yes, of course, it is an interesting
    32        topic of conversation, but one has to look at what the
    33        actual material is which is available to refine that
    34        interesting general discussion into a case against
    35        McDonald's.  For that purpose, one puts, as I have
    36        submitted, Vesty on one side, because it proves nothing
    37        since it is one incident and a small quantity 13 years ago
    38        or 12 years ago, and one looks at the Braslo information
    39        which, if anywhere, is to be found a suggestion that
    40        McDonald's consumption of beef in Brazil might be damaging
    41        the environment.
    42
    43        One then looks at this map and one sees where the Braslo
    44        plants are.  I simply cannot accept that a reasonable
    45        person could sensibly believe that the 50 or so restaurants
    46        which McDonald's have in Brazil, not all of whom get their
    47        meat from these four plants, since there are at least three
    48        others in the south and we do not even know that Braslo is
    49        McDonald's sole supplier, so far as I know, in Brazil, a
    50        proportion of McDonald's restaurants takes its meat from 
    51        these four plants. 
    52 
    53        The question is, and your Lordship may say it goes to
    54        weight, of course, in one sense it does, really, is it
    55        reasonable to attach any weight to it at all?  How
    56        reasonable is it to believe that the meat consumption of
    57        those four plants, the nearest of which is 500 miles or
    58        more away from the rain forest, could actually have any
    59        real impact either on the social life or the environment in
    60        Brazil?

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