Day 056 - 28 Nov 94 - Page 24

     
     1        of forest fail to regenerate?
     2        A.  I am sorry, I do not know that statement.
     3
     4   Q.   Do you know if large amounts of Canadian forest has failed
     5        to regenerate?
     6        A.  There was a period of time when in the western Canada
     7        situation of forest management the responsibility for
     8        replanting lay with the State and not with the companies
     9        that extracted timber.  That was changed in about 1990, and
    10        the responsibility then fell upon the company that was
    11        extracting the timber to replant.  This did have a very
    12        considerable effect in increasing the amount of replanting
    13        that took place on cleared areas.  But one must remember
    14        that most of the areas that were felled would regenerate
    15        naturally anyway.
    16
    17   Q.   But up to 1990 then there were some quite substantial area
    18        (which, I contend, is four and a half million hectares but
    19        some substantial area involving millions of hectares) that
    20        failed to regenerate; is that your understanding?
         A.  My understanding would be that in certain rather more
    22        remote areas where extraction of timber was going on that
    23        by neglect, by leaving it, the regeneration was very slow.
    24        But I find it very difficult to believe that it would not
    25        regenerate because that is not a natural state of a forest.
    26
    27   Q.   Yes, I understand that, but there may have been problems
    28         -- that may be because, for example, soil erosion or
    29        because the ecological balance was altered with a mass
    30        clearance; would that be a reasonable statement?
    31        A.  In certain areas on watersheds, if felling had been
    32        taken too high up to the watershed, there would be a slow
    33        regeneration on those slopes, yes.  But those are
    34        particular examples and not in an area where I believe the
    35        timber that would have been extracted would have been used
    36        for pulp and paper making, but rather used for board
    37        manufacture and sawmilling.
    38
    39   Q.   On obvious question:  If an old growth forest, a natural
    40        forest -- what would you like to call it, an original
         forest, non-plantation forest, is felled -----
    42
    43   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What is the word you would use?
    44        A.  Well, "old growth" is a term that has come to be used
    45        about forests which have been disturbed more by natural
    46        circumstances than by man.
    47
    48   MR. MORRIS:  Right, a good definition.  So, if an old growth
    49        forest is felled, it can never return to the condition that
    50        it was once in, within hundreds of years; is that correct? 
    51        A.  Well, if we are taking timber of a substantial age from 
    52        an area, it obviously takes time for remaining trees to 
    53        reach the same age.  But, to say that a forest will not
    54        reach a status which certainly gives it all the qualities
    55        of old growth forest is it to avoid the point that most of
    56        that old growth forest has been going through change over
    57        centuries anyway.  A very limited number of trees reach a
    58        very substantial age.  Most of forest described as "old
    59        growth" is in some kind of successional pattern and cycle
    60        in any case.