Day 239 - 23 Apr 96 - Page 26
1 state specifically?
2 A. Yes, OK.
3
4 Q. Identifying any areas which traditionally have had or still
5 have moist forest and tropical rainforest?
6 A. Sure. I suppose the cerrado in Goias could be
7 described as fairly representative of cerrado elsewhere in
8 that it incorporates a great range of vegetation types
9 again. The area I know best there is a low forest; the
10 trees are sort of thirty foot, thereabouts, often quite a
11 thorny area; high in biodiversity; a lot of butterflies.
12
13 Q. Where is this area?
14 A. We are talking about -- I am talking about in Goias in
15 -- it is towards the south of Goias. You see, there is
16 one area called Parque Nacional de Brazilia and I have been
17 in that and that is quite representative. Then I have been
18 a little north of that as well.
19
20 In all cases, you do get this range. You get extremes with
21 higher forest around them; trees maybe sixty or seventy
22 feet; very rich in wildlife that you can see, with a lot of
23 small parrots, for example. It is a little north of there
24 that the last species of macaws -- I think he still lives
25 there to this day. I think he is meant to be the last of
26 its species left -----
27
28 MR. JUSTICE BELL: This is absolutely fascinating. I am
29 interested in parrots but not for the purposes of this
30 case.
31 A. Sure, sure, OK. Now, of course, as you go further
32 north you will get more of a mixture of higher forest and
33 what you will see, if you go northwest from there, in the
34 area particularly that we pointed out earlier around Sinop,
35 you see the letters ON there which, on the key, says
36 "Floresta Ombrofila", canopy forest, or "Floresta
37 Estacional", which is seasonal forest. That is, I think,
38 what ordinary people would recognize as rainforest because
39 it is -- it has got this more or less continuous canopy. I
40 am pointing, my Lord, to the area really all around Sinop
41 itself, the purplish grey, bluish area -- bluish grey, I
42 suppose -- area all around Sinop where it says, "ON" in
43 purple brown letters on it and that, on the key, as I
44 pointed out, stands for canopy forest here, if I am correct
45 there -- yes, that is right, canopy forest or seasonal
46 forest.
47
48 I think that could fairly be regarded as an extension of
49 the mass of the rainforest, the bulk of the rainforest.
50 Now, clearly, this area has been heavily eroded by
51 agricultural activities of one kind or another, but what
52 there should be in places like this are what are called 50
53 percent stamps. Now, on ranches in Brazil -----
54
55 Q. This is the area around Sinop?
56 A. Yes, sorry -- I beg your pardon, I am moving around --
57 I am talking about the area around Sinop. On ranches in
58 Brazil, when you establish a ranch you are supposed to
59 leave a 50 percent reserve of the woodland that was there
60 before, or the forest that was there before, and only
