Hide on the Highway: Tracing Leather from Brazil to Europe under the EU Deforestation Regulation

About the study and webinar

A new study, commissioned by the Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN) and conducted by AidEnvironment has mapped the bovine leather supply chain from Brazil to Europe under the upcoming European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).

The EUDR mandates that companies ensure goods entering the EU market do not contribute to deforestation or forest degradation. This includes leather, and European importers of Brazilian leather that do not adhere to these regulations will risk facing penalties.

Cattle farming stands as the primary driver of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Europe's dependence on leather sourced from cattle grazing on recently cleared land has multiple adverse effects on the rainforest and its inhabitants, contributing to climate change, alterations in rainfall patterns, and harm to indigenous communities.

The study, soon to be launched, reveals potential cases of non-compliance with the EUDR and provides insight into EUDR’s practical implications on the ground. We emphasize that challenges such as lack of transparency and difficulty tracing leather exist across various supply chain stages.

These challenges include:

• limited access to animal transit data in Brazil,
• obscured corporate ownership across supply chain,
• key actors often concealed behind logistics companies.

In this webinar, RFN and AidEnvironment will present and discuss the main topics of the study and potential impacts for policymakers, entrepreneurs and civil society.

Speakers: