Day 056 - 28 Nov 94 - Page 05
1 to the industry. So, one tends to talk about the timber
2 trade and the forest industry in a sort of combined way,
3 but it is only really a combined involvement as far as this
4 situation here is concerned over environmental issues where
5 we do like to talk with the forest industry even though we
6 are timber importers.
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Did you mean "euphemisms"?
9
10 MR. MORRIS: I did not mean "euphemism", I meant are they words
11 describing the same thing. It seems they are different.
12 So, there are two aspects; there is the forest industry
13 which is the indigenous forests, is it not, and the
14 industry associated with that, and there is the timber
15 trade which is international?
16 A. Yes, to keep it very simple, the timber trade is
17 concerned with importing timber from forestry sources all
18 around the world. The forest industry here comprises the
19 timber growers who actually are involved in growing forest
20 timber resources here in the UK, and then you have
21 obviously the users of it who are using it to make product
22 from both British timber and imported timber. They are a
23 very wide variety of user indeed.
24
25 Q. So when you say represent the forestry industry, timber
26 trade and industry in environmental matters, those people
27 you have just mentioned are the people that "Forests
28 Forever" is representing?
29 A. Yes, you referred to the Advisory Council of "Forests
30 Forever" and on the Advisory Council of "Forests Forever",
31 you will find representatives of the Forestry Commission,
32 the Forestry Industry Committee of Great Britain, the
33 timber growers, the importers of timber, the furniture
34 manufacturers, the woodworking industry as a whole. So, it
35 is a fairly broad representation there.
36
37 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Is it anyone who has a commercial interest in
38 timber?
39 A. Yes.
40
41 MR. MORRIS: So that would include, for example -- I do not know
42 if it includes them specifically -- people that are
43 manufacturers of packaging?
44 A. It would include, when you are talking about packaging
45 in the terms that this case concerns, it would include them
46 in the sense that The Forest Industry Committee of Great
47 Britain includes people who are making the paper for
48 packaging. But we do not have any representative of any
49 company that is actually making a packaging product on the
50 Advisory Committee of the "Forests Forever".
51
52 Q. But you would represent their interests on that "Forestry
53 Forever" Advisory Council?
54 A. I doubt that they would actually -- the actual
55 manufacturers of a packaging product would not really think
56 that we represented their interest, because they would be
57 appreciative that what we are really representing is a much
58 broader forestry interest and timber interest than their
59 own particular interest.
60