Day 239 - 23 Apr 96 - Page 35


     
     1   Q.   I am sorry Mr. Monbiot, I cannot accept that.  We can find
     2        closed canopy forest in this country, but it is not
     3        rainforest?
     4        A.  No, that is correct.  In this country it is not called
     5        rainforest.
     6
     7   Q.   By why is it called rainforest?
     8        A.  It is a broad category which has been applied to many
     9        types of forest all around the world, largely in
    10        equatorial, but not solely in equatorial regions which I
    11        think, as I have maintained, is not a scientific term.  But
    12        is one that is popularly understood to mean a certain type
    13        of dense tropical forest which is likely, in many cases, to
    14        be biodiverse, but in some parts even in the very middle of
    15        the Amazon basin, not particularly biodiverse.  There are
    16        no hard and fast characteristics of rainforest.  You cannot
    17        say this is and this is not rainforest, unless it is very
    18        clearly not a forest in this part of the world.
    19
    20   Q.   The word "rain" must have some significance?
    21        A.   Certainly, but the word "rainforest" is one which has
    22        -- you know, "Save the Rainforest" was a slogan used
    23        throughout the 1980's, and still used today and it applies,
    24        at least in the popular mind, to a very broad range of
    25        habitats.  It is not -- and I will repeat this -- it is not
    26        a scientific term and it does not reflect any particular
    27        scientifically recognized characteristics.
    28
    29   Q.   Despite the fact that some scientists do use it in a
    30        precise way, to indicate the amount of water indicated by
    31        the word "rain"?
    32        A.   Scientists choose to use the word "moist forest" for
    33        that purpose in order to, if they are really talking about
    34        it in a precise way, some people do use rainforest.  It is
    35        one of these terms which moves in and out of a vast amount
    36        of literature, often applied in a slapdash way but the term
    37        which the scientists I have worked with in Brazil prefer is
    38        "moist tropical forest" to distinguish it from "dryer
    39        tropical forest".
    40
    41   Q.   And if it be seasonal, how do you get in the distinction
    42        then, as opposed to evergreen?
    43        A.   You could call it seasonal moist tropical forest, or
    44        seasonal rainforest.  I mean, again, that is not one of the
    45        necessary defining characteristics in the popular press, in
    46        the popular mind, in the popular perceptions of what
    47        rainforest is.  I have to keep emphasizing this.  It is a
    48        very broad and largely ill-understood category.
    49
    50   Q.   I might be forgiven, Mr. Monbiot, if I asked you how it 
    51        comes you know when I do not about what the popular mind 
    52        thinks or does not think.  Can you tell me that? 
    53        A.  Well, because I have been involved in rainforest
    54        campaigning now since 1985 and I think I have had some
    55        contact with just about every so-called rainforest campaign
    56        which has taken place in this country.  So I am very aware
    57        of what the people are talking about in this sense and
    58        indeed, there have been rainforest campaigns about
    59        rainforest timber which have been in places which are not
    60        moist tropical forest, but comparatively dry tropical

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