How Leather Seats on Luxury SUVs Are Supporting Amazon Deforestation


JBS did not agree with the criteria used by prosecutors and to improve the tracking system, block suppliers flagged by research, and donate $900,000 to the government in response to the audit.

To get an idea of ​​the scale of farms operating in vulnerable areas in the Brazilian Amazon, The Times superimposed government maps of protected Amazon lands, deforested areas, and farm boundaries with the locations of farms that JBS has publicly listed as supplying their slaughterhouses in 2020. . Analyzes showed that among JBS suppliers, farms covering an estimated 2,500 square miles had significant overlap with Indigenous land, conservation zone, or an area that was deforested after 2008, when laws regulating deforestation in Brazil were enacted.

The methodology and results were reviewed and validated by a team of independent researchers and academics working on land use in the Brazilian Amazon.

International trade data showed that companies with tanneries that supplied the leathers shipped leather to factories in Mexico, which were then run by Lear, a major seat manufacturer that supplied automobile assembly plants across the United States. Lear said in 2018 that he had sources about that time. 70 percent raw skins from Brazil. Brazil’s leathers also go to other countries such as Italy, Vietnam and China to be used in automotive. fashion and furniture industries, trade data showed.

JBS acknowledged that nearly three-quarters of the farms identified in The Times’ analysis overlap with land the government has categorized as illegally deforested or Indigenous land or conservation area. However, JBS said all farms were in compliance with the rules to prevent deforestation when it bought from them.

JBS said that where there are conflicts, farms are allowed to operate in protected or deforested areas, or have their boundaries changed or followed by rules to correct environmental violations. Farming is allowed in some protected areas in Brazil if it follows sustainable practices.

JBS said in a statement that it has maintained a monitoring system for more than a decade that validates the supplier’s compliance with its environmental policy. “Over 14,000 suppliers have been blocked for not complying with this policy,” he said. However, the company said, “The biggest challenge for JBS and the beef cattle supply chain in general is to monitor their suppliers as the company has no knowledge of their suppliers.”



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