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

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

[Music] the Amazon is burning every day more than 2,000 hectares of rainforest are illegally destroyed an area six times the size of New York’s Central Park the forest is only preserved around the village beyond that everything has been destroyed Mafia likee businesses are driving whole tribes out of the forests they live in there’s no rule of law only the law of the Jungle those guys uh are very connected they can threaten us they can harm us so we need to be more careful the forest is destroyed primarily to make way for illegal grazing land for cattle raised for meat and leather for example these Commodities reached the world market via convoluted Supply chains we followed the trail of these illegal goods from deep inside the Brazilian Rainforest all the way to Germany we talk to politicians and Industry Representatives met environmental activists journalists and dubious business owners in the Amazon again and again various individuals and groups hindered our investigation over time we started to suspect something shocking do products linked to Illegal DeForest station in the Amazon end up in German luxury cars every year in September Munich hosts the international Motor Show Germany one of the largest Mobility trade fairs in the world this is where our Research into the industry’s involvement in international environmental crimes in the rainforest began ad banners were everywhere these days businesses including automakers pay a lot of lip service to e-mobility climate protection and resource conservation sustainability has become a buzzword but in fact most of the visitors here weren’t that interested do you care about sustainability not really it’s not that important resources have to come from somewhere and what is sustainability anyway it’s an attitude top Executives in the German car industry seem to share protecting the environment costs money and there’s growing competition from China only one in three Executives worry about environmental concerns that’s the sobering conclusion of an international study we are looking at the issue could it be more of a priority yes but it requires capital and raises the question of where to invest we started seeing hints that German automakers don’t look too closely at where materials come from especially the leather used in luxury car Interiors our search for answers first took us to the east coast of of the us we arranged to meet Alexander Fon bismar a leading figure in the fight against illegal deforestation we met him in his favorite place Rock Creek Park in Washington DC the German American Environmental activist has an interesting background he’s a former US Marine who became an undercover investigator looking into illegal deforestation in Asia and Africa the real criminals he told us are not the people on the ground in the Amazon the question is where does the money come from where’s the pressure coming from I soon found out that it often comes from our countries today Von bismar is director of the environmental investigation agency an international organization fighting climate and environmental crime using state-of-the-art technology he and his team are dedicated to exposing the operations perpetrating these offenses the eia says huge profits are being made not only with wood gold and diamonds but above all with il legal grazing land for cattle in other words with products such as meat milk and leather which end up on the international market it’s important to understand that largescale criminal activity in the Amazon is causing us to lose the forest and the tragedy is that we people who don’t want to be involved are in fact bankrolling these crimes it’s a gigantic Market every year Brazil exports around 500,000 tons of cowhide almost half of which goes to the International Auto industry it’s estimated that some 50 to 60 million cattle are required to meet the annual demand for leather upholstery in cars that’s around 300 Square km of cowhide an area bigger than the city of Frankfurt these huge profits make the Amazon a hub of criminal activity and those wanting to shed some light are putting themselves in danger if you want to follow the money you have to do a lot of research including undercover work and process a lot of data we use Innovative Technologies and other methods to trace what’s happening unfortunately this research is incredibly dang ous especially for locals defending the forests the struggle on the ground is led by indigenous peoples who are defending their forest and their future despite the risks we continued our journey heading to Ground Zero of the problem Brazil Von bismar and his team promised to keep up their research back in Washington and help us when they could our first stop was sa Paulo the economic capital of South America there we met journalist Isabelle Harari she works for reporter Brazil an association of investigative journalists and has been doing her own research in the rainforest when I talk about um the destruction of the Amazon and the investigative work that he Brazil do uh looking at the supply chain it’s fundamental to be careful we are talking about a lot of money and a lot of interests behind Isabelle is currently working with a team making a film about the murder of investigative journalist Dom Phillips Phillips was exposing environmental crimes in the Amazon when he was shot dead on a boat in the jungle in 2022 D was really keen on safety so he was he wasn’t Reckless when you’re reporting in the Amazon IL legal deforestation IL legal mining IL legal logging uh there it’s it’s dangerous just to be there do you have any advice what we should be careful about when we are there yes there’s always someone listening so be aware of that okay okay Isabelle put us in touch with a colleague who comes from the region and knows his way around so now we need to watch okay we then made our way to the Amazon a massive area that’s almost twice the size of the EU at the airport of the regional Capital maraba we met Yuri Isabelle’s colleague hey Yuri you how was the flight good good how’s everything from here we plan to drive to AA a remote region deep in the rainforest Yuri estimated we’d need almost 2 days for the journey done by off-road vehicle boat and on foot illegal deforestation in AA is said to have become particularly dramatic in recent years we wanted to find out who’s behind it what we saw on Route was not how we had pictured the Amazon we saw cattle pastures everywhere and hardly any jungle probably during the entire trip we will not see too much for rainforest as we F when we were kids you know uh the bayom here changed a lot uh we’re going to see a lot of cattle Rangers farms and sometimes on uh mines uh so the Amazon changed a lot during the during the past decades and that change shows no sign of stopping again and again we saw evidence of slash and burn agriculture scorched trees and charred stumps after about 6 hours of driving we arrived in Souix the end of the road Yuri found a guide willing to take us up the zingu river to AA this is there’s our boat which one uh with the Red Roof right there the indigenous paraka people of AWA live from the forest and its destruction threatens their livelihood criminal Farmers even Menace them in their own Villages the tribal leaders were ready to welcome us nonetheless need to gain that trust to go in there it’s a been an honor for us to it means that they are we have a that trust so it’s good the zingu is one of the main rivers in the Amazon its banks are home to numerous indigenous communities we made slower progress than we’d hoped the region is currently experiencing unprecedented drought our guide was forced to navigate carefully to avoid getting stuck are we going to enter a Riva soon now yeah I believe in 10 or 15 minutes we’re going to we we can see it will be the beginning of the upior territory in our right side we we finally reached our destination after 8 hours until the 1970s the paraka were completely isolated today they live in a protected area as large as the zarand region in Germany economic exploitation is prohibited and the paraka are trying to maintain their traditional way of life but criminal businesses are penetrating deeper and deeper into their territory the tribal leader had just taken in some people fleeing neighboring Villages after they had been threatened by armed men but they weren’t safe here either we have been getting threats for a long time but it’s getting worse these days the intimidations are constant clashes in the forest have become frequent we are Hunters we go into the woods and Hunt mainly deer and Wild boore but it’s become more difficult due to the foreigners coming to our lands now that these Invaders are here we must travel longer and longer distances to [Music] hunt Yori invited us to accompany the hunters into the jungle he said they could best explain what worsening deforestation means for the paraka people in the past we always had enough we only take as much of the forest as we need since the white people have been taking the Forest away from us we sometimes must travel for days while the hunters continued deeper into the jungle we returned to the Village to meet woa paraka she’s the first female tribal leader she told us some of the men have secretly started doing business with the criminals that’s why the village had decided to put a woman in charge she’s considered [Music] Incorruptible for us par the forest is our life our mother our father our home it’s our future it’s a paradise for our children if it continues to be destroyed it will soon be gone forever there will be no more of the pure air we need to breathe not only for us here in the forest but also for white people for the whole world when at TOA is ready to fight for the forest although the paraka have the law on their side the jungle’s destruction Remains unchecked the laws made by white people don’t seem to be working I wonder if the people who buy cattle from here even think about what they are doing they are also complicit in the destruction of our forests in AA they buy the products from these Invaders and finance what they’re doing but who are these people destroying the forest to Make Way for their herds of cattle are they working for international corporations we met up with Alexander F bismar again his colleagues had been able to gather some information about these illegal businesses team leader Rick Jacobson had worked his way through gigantic amounts of data including documents from local authorities Financial databases and aerial photographs he confirmed what the parak have long said illegal profiteers are destroying the local Forest at a rapid Pace you can see APPA has the largest area of deforestation in the entire Brazilian Amazon and you may have noticed an acceleration just in the last few years exactly especially in this area here skyrocketing of deforestation and we know from uh satellite analysis that most of that uh deforested land is being converted into pasture and what you can see here uh very clearly are hundreds of cows and you could literally count the cows right using satellite images photo analysis and statistical evaluations the team was able to establish how the criminals proceed what our investigation found is that cattle are often transferred between multiple Farms during the course of their life before they’re sold for Slaughter that makes it very difficult to link the uh illegal deforestation where cows may have been raised with the slauer house Rick calls the system cattle laundering because it Works in a similar way to money laundering all traces of illegal dealings are erased he explained that a cow raised on a legally cleared land is sold to a farm outside the area that farm then legally sells the animal to International corporations from there the products made from the animals like meat milk and leather end up on the global [Music] market consumers in Germany at the far end of the supply chain are therefore unwittingly contributing to deforestation in the Amazon yeah there’s a lot of evidence that it’s systemic and the Amazon has been the growth region for the Brazilian cattle industry for more than a decade so all across the Amazon we’ve seen slaughterhouses leather tanneries popping up right in the heart of where the deforestation is happening the analysis employing Innovative research methods provided even more detail like identif ifying numerous suspicious individuals we’ve been uh collecting and using very large data sets of cattle transport permits which has been vital been essential to piecing together parts of these Supply chains uh We’ve also connected these data sets with deforestation data sets with uh rural property data sets that that show who owns Which property the trail leads to several large Farms which according to the register belong to Cesar N and his relatives a well-known local family we traveled back to the Amazon to find out who’s buying the family’s goods and whether there are really are connections to German automakers we meet up with Yuri again who had bad news he said the security situation had deteriorated since our last visit he showed us recent footage shot by Security Forces attempts to disarm criminals and cracked down on illegal livestock farming in the area had resulted in clashes with the police during which several farmers and security guards were injured this is one of the tricky things to when you are investigating something here in in the Amazon anything connects to illegality the footage also shows an an influential lawyer who works for the farmers filming the action this lawyer told me that he owns his own airplane to to visit the erors to visit the Farms of his clients so it shows how how profit this business are our research started to make some waves the same lawyer began railing against us on social media warning his followers about us and claiming we wanted to harm the country I know they’ll be coming soon and I’ve taking a closer look at what they’re doing they’re making fun of our homeland they use image sequences to manipulate opinion they’re violating Brazil’s sovereignty those guys uh are very connected so any news any information they spread very fast you know doesn’t matter if it’s true or not if we try doing any kind of interview with a farmer they probably would say no if they just say no it’s good for us because right now maybe they can do something worse then just say no no they can threaten us they can no do anything to harm us so we need to be more careful but Yuri also had some good news he’d managed to obtain confidential documents from the public prosecutor’s office in maraba in them he repeatedly came across a familiar name Cesar N we got in touch with the investigators in maraba the regional capital prosecutor Igor spindola agreed to talk to us he said the scale of the problem is vast in a pwa alone the territory of the paraka investigators have identified some 80 suspects and more than 60,000 suspected illegal cattle it was a lot of work it was a vast amount of data and this is a large swath of land we employed complex methods and new programs including AI to filter all the data and evaluate it the prosecutors said former president Jer bolsonaro had downright boycotted the investigation during his time in office the farite politician had promoted the rainforest commercial exploitation now under leftist President Lula D Silva the government has changed Tac the EU is also exerting increasing pressure but on the ground it’s still a battle of David versus Goliath over time these businesses funnel more and more money into the region their owners soon move up the social ladder it doesn’t take much they don’t have to buy the land they just occupy it and multiply their wealth quickly and they get closer and closer to political power but in a way it is some kind of organized crime no it it’s organized crime we treat we treat it this way legally Mafia likee activity in the middle of the Amazon and a Judicial apparatus that’s struggling to cope we set out to contact Cesar N the farmer whose name appears in the public Prosecutor’s files and who had been identified by the researchers back in Washington want to this one we located his Farm quickly using geoc coordinates we wanted to find out who’s buying his cattle which is suspected to be illegal but we were stopped in our tracks the farmer’s land is in the middle of an especially dangerous part of the rainforest an area that had seen days of unrest we decided to try another approach we had been contacted by someone in the provincial town of tukuma said to have inside information the let’s try the man is said to be working with Cesar N on a regular basis how can I help you guys we’d like to talk to you about a farmer I know a lot of farmers we’re looking for Cesar N oh Cesar sure I know him if you want we can talk in my office not here in the street you know how it is anyone might be listening we didn’t expect the man to to be so open we followed him inside and continued filming with a hidden camera in his office the man picked up the phone to call Cesar saying the farmer was on one of his properties Cesar Flatout refused to talk to us on camera but he was willing to give us his cell phone number suddenly another man entered the office when he heard that we were asking about local farmers he got angry I don’t know what you want but it sounds suspicious to me if you want to drag those Farmers here in the Amazon through the mud I tell you this I’ve been here for almost 40 years previous governments wanted us to make a profit here in the rainforest no one rambled on about this nature conservation stuff when we arrived there were no roads no Bridges no electricity we’ve worked hard we’ve created wealth and now we’re being made out to be Bandits that large parts of the rainforest are now protected is incomprehensible to many here and complicates the work of public prosecutor eigor spindola there’s a long history of colonization and Conquest in the Amazon our democracy is still young and attitudes towards land occupation are still the same as they’ve always been many people think this is land that anyone can just take land grabs in the rainforest for personal profit if the prosecutor’s figures are correct the illegal cattle in the AWA protected area alone has a market value of more than 50 million [Applause] EUR we drove to a local trans shipment point for cattle transport and called Cesar N we wanted to ask him who buys his illegal cattle oh good afternoon Mr Cesar everything okay with you I’m fine you’re doing well what’s this about Cesar N was willing to talk to us but was clearly angry about the ongoing investigation he admitted to keeping cattle in the protected area of AA for years when he mentions one of his clients we can’t believe what we’re hearing it’s a leading animal processing Enterprise thank you very much Mr Cesar goodbye he admitted that he was selling cattle regularly to JBS and after the lawsuit his name was under embargo so JBS could not buy the cattle anymore okay so JBS is really enforcing the Embargo his name is under embargo but not from his brother probably Charles is still selling cattle to J to DBS and and we know that the our Farms no are basically one big farm so basically the illegal scheme seems to continue and JBS might still buy cattle from from this family probably for years now Cesar N and some of his family have been running a large-scale business selling cattle to JBS one of the world’s biggest animal processing companies a fact confirmed by official transport documentation things were starting to come into Focus Farmers have been reselling cattle kept illegally in the protected area of AA to processing companies such as JBS this is how these Goods ultimately end up in International Supply chains JBS exports fresh meat canned food and coow hides all over the world according to its own statements the company has a Slaughter capacity of around 30,000 cattle per day in Brazil alone that’s more than 10 million cattle per year ahead spinning [Music] number despite its billion doll turnover there’s apparently no one at the company who can spare the time to talk to the press all our attempts to contact the JBS headquarters in sou Paulo whether by email or in person went nowhere but we didn’t give up we paid an unannounced visit to the JBS slaughterous in tukuma one of the dozens of sites the company maintains in the Amazon Amazon Cesar n’s family have also delivered cattle [Applause] here you think there’s a chance that they let us in let’s see after a few minutes a manager appeared we’re from German television and are making a film about the cattle business send me your email make a formal request and I’ll see what I can do are the heights processed into leather here no it’s just a slaughter house where did the heights go maraba it was the same story at the JBS site in maraba 200 km away here too someone would only talk to us if we received approval from company headquarters in sou Paulo but the company continued to Stonewall there is no basically there’s no way to enter here we didn’t get any further Through official channels but we did receive some exclusive material from environmental activists who managed to film with hidden cameras at JBS and other corporations in the [Music] region pretending to be businessmen they were able to secretly record sensitive conversations with JBS executives the Europeans are always talking about trees trees trees Germany France Norway they all say oh we have to save the rainforest in the Amazon but ultimately all they care about is their own economic interests after the manager had made his views on environmental issues clear to the supposed potential business partners he became more specific and started talking about production figures and Partnerships I have tanneries all over Brazil we process 30,000 cowhides a day 90% of them are exported 90% where too the car industry shoe factories Furniture companies we Supply them all and we can adapt to demand for example we deliver tens of thousands of cowhides per month to the automotive supplier Lear you might know it it makes leather seats for the big Brands that’s an explosive Revelation pointing to Links between illegal deforestation and the International Auto industry we wanted to make sure it’s all true and got in touch with one of the activists involved in the undercover operation but why did you go under cover companies deny their connections with deforestation in the Amazon going undercover enables us to meet and speak with the Insiders and through speaking with them in that capacity uh we hoped we would to learn uh what would really happened behind the screen okay and and what did you find out we were able to connect the dots the hidden parts of the supply chain uh between the uh solder houses and the Amazon and the car seat manufacturers official US import data confirms that jbs’s leather products are indeed shipped from Brazil to the US on a large scale usually via the port in Houston Texas in 2023 alone the value of these Goods was in the tens of millions of dollars almost all the animal hides end up with suppliers to the Auto industry around 2/3 go to the Lear Corporation which sells its leather car seats to automakers the world over including Germany but that doesn’t mean they’ll all be held accountable for the alleged environmental crimes in their supply chain Germany’s supply chain Act passed in 2023 has been described as toothless by environmental organizations but the German Ministry for economic cooperation and development argues the law has created a new control body holding corporations to account the federal office for economic Affairs and Export control has extensive rights in terms of controls can inspect relevant files and companies complaints may be lodged by NOS trade unions or anyone affected and it’s important that complaints are filed because this draws attention to where the problems lie however in its first year the office failed to impose even a single penalty in addition those affected like indigenous people are not able to bring cases to court themselves the law does not include civil liability this means those affected have no opportunity to sue directly giving those affected the possibility to assert their rights and claim damages is a very powerful way to force companies to truly respect human rights and Environmental Protection what’s more environmental organizations argue business lobbyists have succeeded in persuading German legislators to make further concessions companies don’t need to check their entire supply chain only their direct suppliers this means for example that if an automaker’s supplier confirms the origin of the leather is legitimate then the job is considered done the rest of the supply chain remains in the dark Brussels is calling for stricter rules Dutch Social Democrat Lara volz has been fighting for years to pass an eu-wide directive that would make companies more accountable the German law indeed says your first supplier that’s the one that you need to check and then uh and then after that things are out of your control what we Tred to say in the European law is if you could have known about a danger if you could have known about an impact then you need to do something about it even if that impact even if the the harm is further down the supply chain in 2023 the EU passed a law on Supply chains prohibiting the sale of goods that can be directly linked to deforestation Lara volters wants the new EU supply chain law to go even further it now has the support of most EU member states despite massive pressure from industry Representatives so in Brussels the the lobbying works here in the hallways I mean people can can come in and talk to the people involved in this law so that’s myself that’s my colleagues from other groups what we need to be very careful of here is that we have a balance between the industry telling us how the industry Works in practice and those people who have much less of a voice the reason we want this law is that the power imbalance has not been great for that last group it’s big companies big multinationals who have gotten an advantage from that and they have put often profits over people we had learned that a legal leather is being supplied to German automakers but could we find out in which makes and models the material is installed we headed to the deep south of the US to visit one of the many sites owned by Automotive lier Lear but the company was no more willing to share information than its Brazilian business partners all our attempts to talk to someone went nowhere security guards ordered us to leave the premises back at the hotel we got in touch with a well-known supply chain expert he too has complained that companies do not make their supply chains transparent there is no requirement legally on transparency nothing so American companies do not share very much on their website with regard to what’s happening in the supply chain do you sometimes feel frustrated about all of this I teach a class here on this entire subject and the students get a little depressed at the end of the semester it makes you cynical because companies claim a lot but they don’t back up their claims with data Supply chains are complex and most companies have not traced back the entire supply chain it doesn’t mean that they cannot but it is they need to make the effort with Lear refusing to talk to us we continued to follow our leads on our own judging by the flags outside the building BMW is one of the company’s major customers the German luxury automaker’s largest plant is only 10 minutes away in Spartanburg we asked for an appointment it turned out BMW was much more willing to talk to us than the other companies the CEO of the plant agreed to talk to us about sustainability and Supply chains we are the largest car exporter here in the US 60% of the more than 400,000 Vehicles manufactured here every year are sent overseas it goes without saying that sustainability is one of the core principles of our operations and actions BMW made in the USA 1,500 luxury cars roll off the assembly line here every day some destined for Germany most of these SUVs have leather upholstery the expensive material is used on panels the steering wheel and the seats might this leather originate from areas in the Amazon subject to Illegal deforestation we wanted to know from the CEO what role risks to the environment play in the company’s supply chain at this point his responses became vague the trans Supply chains transparency is key for us and we are committed to this and have the corresponding transparency and focus the friendly PR team asked us to direct more specific questions to company headquarters in Munich however despite the claims of full transparency our interviewer Quest was turned down we continued our Research In A Roadside restaurant coming across confidential market analyses and video materials they proved that Lear supplies genuine leather seats on a large scale to BMW plants all over the world other leading German car manufacturers such as Mercedes and Volkswagen are also involved we had found the final pieces in the supply chain puzzle criminal activity is destroying the Amazon’s rainforest products from cattle kept there illegally end up on the World Market the path of dirty Goods leads along convoluted Supply chains featuring animal processing and automotive supply companies as well as top automakers at the very end of the chain consumers in Germany who unwittingly bear some responsibility for what’s happening in the Amazon we emailed several German luxury car makers confronting them with our research and then waited for a response we returned to Germany to the last link in the supply chain a luxury car dealership Rishad Vagner has been voted BMW dealer of the Year several times he knows exactly what customers are looking for in their vehicles this out is not first a car is still a status symbol customers want to show what they can afford for some it’s very important that the the leather feels Pleasant and that the material is natural for reasons of principle others absolutely want the vegan option BMW has been offering completely vegan Interiors fitted with so-called vegan leather since 2023 but this is still more of a niche product this is real leather feel that texture and then we have imitation leather it’s also available in both colors genuine leather that is animal leather and this is a more sustainable solution customer gido Rich has always been a fan of classic leather this is all real leather not a leather it feels wonderful of course high quality material but possibly of dubious origin I’ve never thought about where the leather comes from I assume that it was produced legally and didn’t come from anywhere that’s endanger if you’ve now found out that it does then I would want someone to tell me that of course it’s a wish managing director richad Vagner has not heard for the first time yeah we need to do some explaining sometimes and are then forced to find the right information ourselves and quickly but there is still a long way to go in terms of transparency transpar a clear demand to BMW headquarters which responded to our query shortly afterwards in recent years we have continuously reduced our purchases of leather from South America we have used the media coverage as an opportunity to enter into in-depth bilateral exchange with affected suppliers bilateral Exchange environmental investigator Alexander Fon bismar wants companies to introduce strict controls of their entire supply chain it’s incredibly unfair that people in the middle of the supply chain don’t take responsibility but I believe we really do have people on our side because people don’t want to be complicit in these crimes meanwhile illegal deforestation is continuing every day an area the size of 5,000 soccer Fields is lost in the Amazon the people whose lives are directly impacted can’t stand up to this illegal activity on their own they can only hope that 10,000 km away at the other end of the supply chain people will start to take responsibility the forest is only preserved around the village Beyond it everything has been destroyed but we will not stop fighting for our forest it’s vital for our children’s future and also so the future of the entire planet [Music]

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.

#documentary #dwdocumentary #leather #carindustry
______

DW Documentary gives you knowledge beyond the headlines. Watch top documentaries from German broadcasters and international production companies. Meet intriguing people, travel to distant lands, get a look behind the complexities of daily life and build a deeper understanding of current affairs and global events. Subscribe and explore the world around you with DW Documentary.

Subscribe to:
⮞ DW Documentary (English): https://www.youtube.com/dwdocumentary
⮞ DW Documental (Spanish): https://www.youtube.com/dwdocumental
⮞ DW Documentary وثائقية دي دبليو (Arabic): https://www.youtube.com/dwdocarabia
⮞ DW Doku (German): https://www.youtube.com/dwdoku
⮞ DW Documentary हिन्दी (Hindi): https://www.youtube.com/dwdochindi

For more visit: http://www.dw.com/en/tv/docfilm/s-3610
Follow DW Documentary on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dwdocumentary/
Follow DW Documental on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dwdocumental

We kindly ask viewers to read and stick to the DW netiquette policy on our channel: https://p.dw.com/p/MF1G