Day 159 - 20 Jul 95 - Page 11
1 indicating that.
2
3 It is certainly our belief that that is quite normal
4 practice, and that a similar line could be drawn with the
5 centre at Goianier and Campo Grande plant, for example,
6 that, as our witness has said and we will give in evidence,
7 Mr. Monbiot, cattle is trucked from the Amazon right down
8 to San Paolo, and the Goianier and Campo Grande plants are
9 closer than San Paulo. It is certain they will get some
10 cattle from a Hinterland at least as large as the Barretos
11 plant, which, of course, would take them both into Rondonia
12 which is the spar of rain forest cover still existing on
13 the West side and Mato Grosso in general.
14
15 I do not know if I need to say again -----
16
17 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Remember you are replying to Mr. Rampton.
18
19 MR. MORRIS: Yes. I understand some of the things that
20 Mr. Rampton said. I think this is obviously a very
21 important issue, and I just wanted to ensure that we have
22 mounted the best possible argument.
23
24 Mr. Rampton said that it had been accepted that rain forest
25 destruction or tropical forest destruction had finished in
26 1975 -- some four years before McDonald's started up. I do
27 not know where he got that idea from.
28
29 MR. RAMPTON: I got it from "Hoof Prints in the Forest".
30
31 MR. MORRIS: He did say it finished; tropical forest and
32 rain forest destruction has continued unabated and is
33 continuing as we speak. Mr. Monbiot's evidence, which was
34 written in 1993 and is based upon his research from 1989 to
35 1992 in the Brazilian Amazon region (that is in his second
36 paragraph), the evidence given there is that it is
37 continuing unabated, well, certainly up to 1992 which would
38 cover the years of the alleged distribution of the Fact
39 Sheet.
40
41 I think that the Collins' atlas should be taken as grounds
42 for us to expect that evidence will be forthcoming to back
43 up our case on the subject. We will certainly try to get a
44 more detailed map.
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can I intervene now to say that if you do
47 anticipate that on any matter which is pleaded, or you
48 would say is covered by a pleading, you think that any of
49 your expert witnesses, which you describe them, or your
50 destruction of the environment witnesses, can say anything
51 more which is helpful, you really must get that off them as
52 soon as possible.
53
54 You have a bit of a break coming up. It is one thing to
55 countenance the odd extra allegation from an employee or
56 ex-employee, or someone who has worked in a plant somewhere
57 in this country, but on something with the broad
58 ramifications of evidence on destruction of the
59 environment, I start hearing new things. You are going to
60 be faced with an application that it would be quite wrong
