Day 242 - 29 Apr 96 - Page 07

     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It would be about five million hectares, very
     3        roughly.  I think there are about two-and-a-half acres to a
     4        hectare.
     5        A.  No, we work in hectares and in Costa Rica they work in
     6        Manzanas which means apples.
     7
     8   MR. MORRIS:  OK.
     9        A.  I would say five million hectares is roughly correct.
    10
    11   Q.   You have had a look at this document?
    12        A.  Yes.
    13
    14   Q.   Are the figures used in here generally reliable, in your
    15        opinion?
    16        A.  Generally reliable, yes, in my opinion.
    17
    18   Q.   Right.  This is, of course, is in 1969, the situation ----
    19        A.  Yes.
    20
    Q.  -- This was written?
    22        A.  It reflects the situation in the 1960s.
    23
    24   Q.   Right.  If you notice, it talks about something like half
    25        of the country is farm property, this is at this time.
    26        Then in the first full paragraph, it says:  "The largest
    27        percentage of the farmland, about 41 per cent, is in
    28        forests".
    29
    30        Then at the bottom of that paragraph it says:  "35 per cent
    31        of the farmland or about 2.3 million acres is used for
    32        livestock".
    33
    34        Is that what you mean by "established ranches" continuing
    35        to be a threat to forests, that farm land actually contains
    36        forests on the farmland?
    37        A.  That is correct.  When an individual or a corporation
    38        purchases farmland, they will not deforest it during the
    39        first year.  They would not cut the trees immediately.
    40        They will attend in the first place to put as much cattle
         as possible in those parts of the farm or forest that they
    42        have purchased that appears to show the highest potential
    43        yield of pasture for the animals, so they will have as much
    44        high density production of beef as possible in the early
    45        years, while gradually continuing to cut down the trees and
    46        deforest the rest of the property that they have purchased
    47        over the subsequent years, which explained the time lag
    48        that I was talking about before between beef production and
    49        rate of deforestation.
    50 
    51        It might appear -- if I could volunteer this information -- 
    52        paradoxical at first glance that the rate of deforestation 
    53        is more rapid some years after the expansion of cattle
    54        production.  That can be explained by the fact that there
    55        is intensive cattle production on the high yield parts of
    56        the ranches in the early years.
    57
    58   Q.   Okay.  In your article which you append to that, which we
    59        can rely on without reading out, as far as I understand it
    60         -- I am not sure which version you have got behind that