Day 275 - 08 Jul 96 - Page 14

     
     1        be from the witness statements.
     2
     3             "Attending pickets and handing out the leaflets was
     4        the limit of my involvement in the campaign.  The leaflets
     5        that I recall handing out were A5 size, not the long
     6        leaflet or the fact sheet that is the subject of this
     7        action.  Since receiving the writ I have continued to hand
     8        out truthful and accurate leaflets about McDonald's, as I
     9        feel it important not to give in to this attempt by
    10        McDonald's at censorship and also because I believe it is
    11        necessary to counter the mass of propaganda put out by
    12        McDonald's about how wonderful they think they are.  I have
    13        every reason to believe that the contents of the leaflet
    14        complained of are true.
    15
    16             "I have read articles and books on the destruction of
    17        rainforests and the resulting effects, including the
    18        eviction of small farmers and of native peoples.  Some of
    19        these articles/books specifically mention McDonald's as
    20        being responsible for such destruction in that they
         purchase meat which came from cattle reared on former
    22        rainforest land.  I have also seen various documentaries
    23        about rainforest destruction, including the film
    24        Jungleburger in which representatives of Montacilla's Meat
    25        Co-op are shown as stating that they supplied beef for
    26        McDonald's use in the USA.  I did not watch the video just
    27        before making the statement, that was done from memory.  I
    28        have spoken with Peter Heller, who made this film, and he
    29        confirmed that it was an accurate record of what those
    30        representatives said.
    31
    32             Just one thing that I particularly wanted to refer to
    33        with regard to the rainforest issue, it is in the
    34        defendant's list of documents.  Yes, it is in the
    35        defendant's supplementary list of documents, bundle 2, tab
    36        39.  This is a book called "Ecology 2000, The Changing Face
    37        of the Earth", edited by Sir Edmund Hillary, and this is a
    38        book that I was given in the mid-1980's by my parents who
    39        obviously knew that I had an interest in ecological and
    40        environmental matters, and on page 31 of this book there is
         a photograph of McDonald's, there is a photograph of a
    42        cattle ranch, there is a photograph of McDonald's and there
    43        is a photograph of some burgers, and underneath the burgers
    44        it says, "The Hamburger Connections - South and Central
    45        American Cattle via McDonald's.  The world's largest seller
    46        of hamburgers to millions of mouths.  In the process
    47        millions of acres of tropical forest are being destroyed",
    48        and that was a book which I had in the mid-1980's and I had
    49        read parts of it.
    50
    51             Can I just say that at this stage it is quite
    52        difficult for me to say in respect of the documents that
    53        are in the bundles which ones I had seen before the writs
    54        and which ones I had seen afterwards.  I have not had time
    55        to, you know, go through it carefully.  But I do know that
    56        I had seen articles and other reports, books, leaflets,
    57        about McDonald's and about all these different issues
    58        before I attended the picket in October 1989.  As far as I
    59        was concerned, none of the matters that are in the London
    60        Greenpeace fact sheet that we are being sued over were