Illegal leather: How the car industry is threatening the rainforest | DW Documentary

Brazil’s tannery industry exports products worth 1.5 billion Euros every year. Cattle meat and hides are a huge economic driver. But this business often involves the illegal destruction of the rainforest for grazing land. “The forest is our home. And now it’s all being destroyed forever.” Wenatoa Parakanã stands outside her cabin in the dense rainforest of the Brazilian Amazonas and is close to tears. The young Parakanã woman has lived her whole life in the remote region of Apyterewa - about a day’s motorboat trip to the next small town. But for several years now, life for Wenatoa has been changing beyond recognition. Strangers are coming to threaten her village, chop down the trees and turn her homeland into gigantic pasture lands for thousands of cattle. Over the last 20 years, an area of forest almost as large as Germany has been logged in the region - often illegally. Many researchers fear that the Amazonas has already reached its tipping point: It can no longer recover from the many fires and droughts. This could have devastating consequences for the global climate. On a local level, only very few people dare to oppose the illegal destruction of the rainforest. After all, the animals’ meat and hides are a huge economic driver. Every year, the Brazilian tannery industry exports products valued at more than one billion Euros. These products are sold all over the world. And as the research for this film shows: some of them are also ending up in German luxury cars. With intrepid journeys to the heart of the action, footage secretly filmed in abattoirs, interviews with insiders and the latest digital research techniques, the team retraces the production steps of this illegal leather right to its source. From the Brazilian rainforest, via shady middlemen to German car dealerships offering the latest models by BMW, Mercedes & Co. - complete with their luxurious leather interiors. The film embarks on a journalistic quest for clues that turns into an economic crime thriller. After all, this isn’t an isolated case, it’s systematic environmental exploitation. Despite the many glossy brochures touting the carmakers’ sustainability credentials, these complex supply chains are often opaque - keeping their impact on people and the environment in the dark.