Illegal cattle ranching has been the number one driver of Amazon deforestation. Pará is one of the Amazon’s leading cattle producing states and has already lost over 18 million hectares of rainforest

Undercover work, field interviews and analyses of shipment records, Brazilian official data and satellite imagery expose Coach’s links to Frigol: a Brazilian meatpacker that has purchased cattle raised in illegally deforested areas and also laundered from within the Apyterewa Indigenous Territory

Pará’s largest exporter of leather to Europe is Durlicouros, a tannery supplied by Frigol. Between 2020 and 2023, Durlicouros shipped over 14,700 tonnes of leather to Italy. Nearly a quarter was bought by two tanneries which supply Coach and several other familiar names from the world of luxury fashion

The Italian tanneries and Durlicouros are all certified by the Leather Working Group (LWG). Earthsight’s investigation highlights the certification body’s shortfalls in ensuring sustainable leather supply chains. By not requiring traceability back to ranches, it fails to account for environmental and human rights abuses happening in areas where cattle are raised

New European laws, such as the EU Deforestation Regulation and the UK Environment Act, will ban products linked to deforestation and illegalities. But these laws face heavy lobbying from some of the major culprits of these harms, including the leather industry, threatening to weaken and delay them. This new investigation underlines why European policymakers must stand firm

Given the risks exposed, the report calls on luxury goods companies to implement robust policies to ensure there is no leather from deforestation in their supply chains