Day 056 - 28 Nov 94 - Page 25
1
2 Q. On that subject of limited number of trees reaching an old
3 age, but they have a particular ecological advantage, do
4 they not, very old trees?
5 A. They can have, but trees of a mature age can also
6 provide a lot of the benefits that wildlife require. Trees
7 of maturity can also provide spaces and holes and hollows
8 for birds to nest in.
9
10 Q. Are you saying that the forest industry would be being
11 responsible if it protected over mature and, particularly,
12 extremely old, developed trees within its forest that it is
13 managing? Would it be environmentally or ecologically
14 responsible to do that?
15 A. Increasingly, this is the pattern of forest management.
16
17 Q. For ecological reasons?
18 A. For reasons of the full biodiversity, the full natural
19 use of the forest to the best advantage of wildlife and
20 maturity for economic purposes, and this is being done in
21 virtually all the forest regions from which timber for the
22 purposes we are talking about are coming.
23
24 Q. So, in other words, over mature or very old trees do have a
25 particular environmental benefit?
26 A. Yes. If a forest reaches the stage where all the trees
27 are over mature, and many of them are falling as they will
28 do as they reach a certain age, or as they are affected by
29 either fungus or wind or a pest of one kind or another,
30 that forest begins to degenerate rather than to give
31 benefit environmentally to the range of biodiversity.
32
33 Q. While we are on that subject, historically, forests have
34 been quite happily developed without interference from
35 human beings for hundreds of thousands of years; is that
36 correct?
37 A. I think it would be difficult to say that in most of
38 the mature forest regions of Europe and Scandinavia where
39 man's involvement has been going on for hundreds of years
40 also.
41
42 Q. Not for hundreds of thousands of years?
43 A. Not for hundreds of thousands of years.
44
45 Q. No. But, basically, forests do not need human beings to
46 grow and develop and they would become more diverse over
47 thousands of years, would they not?
48 A. They would constantly change, as all the botanical
49 world does change. They would be changing through the
50 climax of certain species overcoming other species, and
51 they would be changing because of natural forest fires;
52 they would be changing because of wind throw and they would
53 be changing because of the abundance of pests which
54 eventually become a serious problem in a forest area. So,
55 that change has been part of the forest life for hundreds
56 of thousands of years.
57
58 Q. Yes, but you have got Charles Darwin's book somewhere up
59 there, and the general direction of unmanaged forests and
60 the natural environment, in general, is towards more
