Day 242 - 29 Apr 96 - Page 05

     
     1   Q.   We then come on to the next statement, December 11th 1993,
     2        the second supplementary statement:
     3
     4        "Further to my first supplementary statement on the
     5        McDonald's Corporation and Costa Rican deforestation,
     6        I wish to add the following:
     7
     8        "1.  I have read the supplementary statement by David Rose,
     9        dated by hand 7th December 1993; I believe there can be no
    10        interpretation of this statement other than that land that
    11        was still forested in mid-1970s could have been used in the
    12        1980s to pasture animals purchased by the McDonald's
    13        Corporation.
    14
    15        "2.  As I discuss in an article published in the academic
    16        journal New Political Science, Fall/Winter 1990, the
    17        process of deforestation takes place in at least six
    18        stages, usually involves logging companies, small farmers
    19        and finally large cattle ranchers, and can take well over
    20        10 years.  Indeed in some parts of the country, deforested
         land would not be available for pasture for a decade or
    22        more after clearance.  A photocopy of the relevant section
    23        of the article is enclosed as Annex A.
    24
    25        "3.  In the same article (see Annex A again), I argue that
    26        'Beginning in the 1970s, annual rates of forest loss began
    27        to rise due to pasture expansion and other pressures, and
    28        by the early 1980s, the country was losing nearly four per
    29        cent of its forests every year, the highest rate in the
    30        Western hemisphere including the Amazon Basin'.
    31
    32        "4.  In view of the above, it is clear to me that
    33        McDonald's 'ten year policy' (a) could have constituted a
    34        clear incentive to small farmers to clear forest land in
    35        the expectation that it would, at a later stage, be
    36        purchased by agents assembling land for established
    37        ranchers; (b) may have allowed the Company, at least until
    38        1988, to purchase beef grown on land that had been cleared
    39        at the height of the deforestation frenzy of the late 1970s
    40        when the rate of Costa Rican deforestation was among the
         highest in the world.
    42
    43        "5.  The notion of 'established ranches' deserves
    44        clarification.  In some areas - Guanacaste or San Carlos,
    45        for example - it is possible to put cattle on the land for
    46        decades without harming the topsoil.  However, where during
    47        the 1960s and 1970s, ranches were set up in areas that had
    48        been tropical moist forest, the topsoil often became
    49        rapidly degraded and further forest to pasture conversion
    50        was usually required to maintain expected levels of beef 
    51        production.  Such 'established ranches' thus became a 
    52        continuous threat to the tropical moist forest 
    53        environment.  Thus a statement to the effect that beef was
    54        purchased from 'established ranches' does not provide a
    55        guarantee that such purchases did not contribute to
    56        deforestation."
    57
    58        Just hold on one second.  I will read to the end but
    59        I wanted to come back to that.
    60