Day 158 - 19 Jul 95 - Page 20
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: There we are. I have merely indicated that
2 it might be of interest to know just where it does go.
3
4 MR. MORRIS: Yes. In any event, he then goes on in his letter,
5 Lord Vesty, to say that the cattle that are raised there or
6 bred there are fattened in the state of Sao Paulo, which is
7 to the north and west of Sao Paulo the town, around the
8 fourth red blob -- if we can call it the fourth red blob.
9 So they must be transported to there to be fattened.
10
11 He then goes on in his third paragraph to say: "It is
12 obvious that this export works is not involved in pasture
13 formation or cattle raising in the rain forest region of
14 Brazil, and we would never find it economically feasible to
15 truck fat cattle 2,000 kilometres"; but it is, of course,
16 economically to truck bred cattle to whatever distance to
17 an area to be fattened up. Presumably, he distinguishes
18 fat cattle, because the trucking of fat cattle is another
19 matter. Whether they are truck raised cattle or fattened
20 cattle, it makes obvious sense to fatten them up before
21 slaughter, as near to the slaughter plant as possible.
22 That is the way we understand this piece of evidence. So
23 that would be enough.
24
25 If we then move on to the transcript from day 95. I hope
26 that you have it available in court. This should be
27 understood as the admission or the evidence of the
28 Plaintiffs, never mind our own evidence; and, obviously,
29 that letter would have been couched in as positive and
30 partial tones as possible in trying to convince McDonald's
31 to take the beef or to be able to say publicly: "Oh, well,
32 we are squeaky clean", although, in fact, of course, they
33 buried this particular series of imports or the fact of it.
34
35 I do not know, do you have day 95 up there? If not,
36 I could hand it up.
37
38 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Give me a date.
39
40 MR. MORRIS: It is 2nd March. It is the last day of
41 Dr. Gonzales' evidence.
42
43 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, I do not have it.
44
45 MR. MORRIS: Pages 66 and 67, the two lines before that page, on
46 page 65, it says: "Have you still got a copy of the map?"
47 You said: "Yellow XI, tab 5." He says: "Yes." So he had
48 the map in front of him that we are looking at the moment.
49 The conversation went ----- (Pause)
50
51 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What do you want me to look at particularly
52 on pages 66 and 67?
53
54 MR. MORRIS: Effectively, I was asking him about the Amazon
55 frontier as being the generally accepted extent of the
56 rain forest. He recognised that the red line was the
57 Amazon frontier. That is just a cartialogical fact, as far
58 as I can see. In fact, it even says in the McDonald's map
59 "Amazon frontier", that red line, in regard to Brazil. It
60 may of course extend outside Brazil. He says he recognises
