Day 285 - 23 Oct 96 - Page 13
1 just because someone is employed by McDonald's in a high
2 executive position they are lying whenever they say
3 something which you do not like. I have got to be a bit
4 more subtle than that.
5
6 MR. MORRIS: Right.
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have to look at each witness called by
9 whichever side and take a rather more sensible and
10 circumspect approach in judging their credibility.
11
12 MR. MORRIS: Right. So I think in terms of this whole chain,
13 this global chain, if you like, of cause and effect, it is
14 accepted by any witness and in any document that has been
15 brought into the subject -- brought into the case on the
16 subject -- that cattle ranching is the main form of land
17 encroachment and damage to tropical forests or rainforests
18 that have been occurring in Latin America and Costa Rica.
19 As an example, when we got the documents in Mr. Cesca's
20 briefcase -- which I no doubt cannot find -- we have the
21 1982 recognition by McDonald's in that letter about cattle
22 ranching being 38 percent of the direct cause of Amazonian
23 destruction.
24
25 In that letter it also refers to colonisation, it is
26 something like twenty-five or thirty percent colonisation
27 which would result predominantly from displacement of
28 peoples elsewhere in Brazil, which would also be related
29 to cattle ranching. On the subject of Costa Rica --
30 sorry, if I can just find this document. (Pause) It says
31 in - I think it is page 2 of that set of documents. Well,
32 it is the second page, but it is document 1. It was a
33 number of points, A to H prepared for Mr. Cesca. I can't
34 remember who he said it was prepared by; Mr. Tozey maybe,
35 I can't remember now.
36
37 It says, "The rainforest has been destroyed principally to
38 be used in cattle ranching." This was point G. It says,
39 "The rainforest has been destroyed principally to be used
40 in cattle ranching", and then he goes on, "The
41 transformation of forest to pasture usually have" -- that
42 is what he says, have -- "an intermediate and transitory
43 step for production of grain for one or two years to pay
44 for the costs of clearing the forest land..." So, the
45 transitory step is immaterial in this case. He says, and
46 Mr. Cesca had to agree, that the cause and effect is the
47 cattle ranching and destruction of rainforest, at least in
48 Costa Rica.
49
50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
51
52 MR. MORRIS: And this increased production. Well, I think we
53 have heard in this case, and I have not got the reference
54 for this, beef production in Costa Rica doubled between
55 1959 and 1972. Well, I was going to say in Honduras it
56 has trebled but that does not feature in the case
57 particularly.
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can you remember, it may have been in the
60 documents I had on Costa Rican beef production, but can
