Day 058 - 30 Nov 94 - Page 61
1 Commission going back even before my time as a part-time
2 commissioner. Yes, it has progressed and so it should do
3 all the time.
4
5 Q. But because it is a matter of gradual progression you
6 cannot say how far back in time your conclusion in the
7 terms it is written in would apply?
8 A. I would just add one point that has impressed me and
9 that is even under the heading of "Recycling", there is no
10 doubt in my mind that companies like McDonald's who have
11 been perhaps subject to environmental pressures in their
12 own marketplace, have pushed back to the sources of supply
13 and demanded on the one side recycling and on the other
14 identification of the source of their materials. It would
15 be equally true to say if companies like McDonald's had not
16 applied such pressure over a period of years, going back
17 through the process of manufacture of their materials that
18 they themselves use, the effect and change in environmental
19 attitudes would not have been as great as it has been.
20
21 Q. I understand that. It may be that the question I am asking
22 is one which really cannot be answered, but you see the
23 words you have actually used under "Conclusion"? Can I put
24 it in this way: Would you have been able to say that at
25 the beginning of 1989 or not?
26 A. Not obviously to the extent that one can say it now.
27 That is perfectly clear in all the standards on
28 environmental issues concerned with forestry that have
29 emerged in international conferences and in national
30 approaches to the government policy and forest policy as a
31 whole. I would have to say and repeat that in 1989
32 I joined the Forestry Commission and found to my amazement
33 how everybody was concentrating their efforts on how to
34 meet the multitudinous uses of the forest which included
35 environmental issues high on their agenda. That was in
36 1989.
37
38 MR. MORRIS: Just forestry practices in Europe, are they
39 compared to other countries, other areas of the world? Are
40 they particularly, in your opinion, of better standards now
41 after 1989? Are the standards now better than other
42 regions of the world? Are they the best?
43 A. Are you asking whether they are progressed faster in
44 environmental terms?
45
46 Q. No, just the standards. Your conclusion relates to the
47 standards, let us say, in the 90s generally in European
48 forests. Are the standards better or worse in other
49 regions, leave aside America and Canada, what about the
50 rest of the world?
51 A. If you are talking about the Southern Hemisphere,
52 tropics and the Boreal forest such as Russia and the like,
53 I would have said Europe practices are almost certainly
54 more sophisticated than many, but there could be no more
55 sophisticated forestry than that of New Zealand or
56 Australia. It is extremely well developed and a very
57 essential part of their economy with a very strong
58 influence of environmental issues too.
59
60 Q. Do you know where McDonald's (Japan) gets its paper
