Day 058 - 30 Nov 94 - Page 57
1 possible to extract from that paragraph that the more
2 forest we have, the more carbon we absorb and the more we
3 are avoiding the necessity of using much more unhelpful
4 materials in terms of carbon dioxide.
5
6 You may also note that I go on to state that young trees
7 absorb C02 and give out oxygen in the process of
8 photosynthesis and growth, and old mature trees are at best
9 neutral in this process. It is also fair to say that the
10 snags and fallen trees that drop into the forest in natural
11 regeneration and in the current processes, are actually
12 putting carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere; a small
13 amount but, on the other hand, the fact is that older trees
14 are neutral, younger trees are absorbing carbon dioxide.
15
16 Q. Page 18.
17
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: By all means if there is something you
19 omitted, but you asked quite a lot about this yesterday
20 morning, did you not, in fact?
21
22 MR. MORRIS: Yes, I was going to miss almost all of that out.
23 When you say in the last paragraph, "Forestry practice
24 everywhere avoids clear cutting on steep unstable slopes,"
25 that is not necessarily the case, is it, in the USA and
26 Canada?
27 A. Certainly it is the practice now. I am not suggesting
28 that 10 or 15 years ago they did not just sweep up the
29 hillside and clear it off. This was very unfortunate and
30 the whole forest industry worldwide has been complaining to
31 the Canadian forest industry about it and a lot of change
32 has been taking place by peer pressure.
33
34 Q. When you say in the second paragraph, "Now that the
35 practice of felling smaller areas or coupes has been
36 adopted in virtually all Northern Hemisphere forest
37 regions", is that sort of the same time-scale we are
38 talking about with the other developments, sort of late
39 80s? Would that be the cross-roads as far as that is
40 concerned?
41 A. I think probably if we are taking it worldwide the
42 answer is, yes. I think you will also appreciate that
43 smaller coupes in Scandinavia where the forest owners only
44 had small areas, were a practice already. I mean, if you
45 only got 30 hectares you do not knock the lot out all in
46 one go. It is part of their income; not part of their
47 capital sale. They do not want to dispose of the lot.
48
49 Q. But as far as the other countries are concerned that we
50 have already quoted and you have already quoted, that would
51 apply?
52 A. Yes.
53
54 Q. The sort the crossroads would have been the late 80s, early
55 90s?
56 A. We have spoken about Canadian and North America
57 practice, particularly the Canadian practice, of now having
58 a lower average size of coupe than before. I think we said
59 British Columbia had now an average of just over 34
60 hectares per cut, where certainly it was more than 10, 15
