Day 251 - 17 May 96 - Page 06
1 the map, the vegetation map? This is a vegetation map of
2 Brazil. I cannot remember the date now when it was made --
3 1983, thank you. Data, information, gathered over the
4 previous decade. Can you see Sinop, where it is on the map
5 above the words "Mato Grosso"?
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If you go up the road you mentioned in your
8 statement.
9
10 MR. MORRIS: Is it the same? It is the coloured map.
11 A. Yes, certainly, I can see Sinop, yes.
12
13 Q. Can you see next to Sinop there is an area to the east with
14 "OM" written in it and some dots ---
15 A. Yes.
16
17 Q. -- which is an area of agricultural activity, according to
18 the key? When did you go to Sinop, or have you been a
19 number of times?
20 A. I have been a number of times. In fact, this was
21 precisely the region I was referring to in this fourth
22 paragraph here. When I first went there in, let me think,
23 1976/7, it was this area, this road did not exist. I went
24 in with one of the lorries which was actually one of the
25 first vehicles to be moving in down the rough track through
26 the forest, and at this time Sinop did not exist. This
27 area was all tropical forest. The road was being
28 constructed.
29
30 Then I returned on several occasions and actually saw the
31 implementation of the Sinop project, which was a big, what
32 they call a colonisation project which was giving land to
33 people who were coming in from the south, and they were
34 clearing the forest and settling people mainly for cattle
35 ranching but also for some agriculture.
36
37 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just pause there, please.
38 A. There is actually a question in my book -----
39
40 Q. "Please pause" means I am making a note. What was the
41 forest on the land, what were they clearing on the land?
42 A. They were cutting down tropical forest.
43
44 Q. Yes, but what do you mean by "tropical forest"? Any forest
45 within the tropics is tropical forest, I suppose?
46 A. I am not an expert in forest, but what I mean is human
47 tropical forest; the kind of forest with trees of 80 to 100
48 feet tall and with that dense vegetation that we associate
49 in the layman's mind with the tropical forest. Not all
50 this region was made up of dense tropical forest, and part
51 of it was drier forest, and there were even a few areas of
52 open savannahs, but the majority, as I recall, the
53 majority, most of the vegetation in this region was humid
54 tropical forest.
55
56 MR. MORRIS: While we have the map open, can you find Nova
57 Xavantina, it is sort of -- do you know where it is?
58 A. Yes, I have been there. I will just find it, yes.
59
60 Q. It is on that dotted line that goes north/south, the BR158?
