The owner of The North Face, Vans and Timberland, has announced that it will stop sourcing leather from Brazil, citing concerns over the environmental impact made by cattle ranchers that has caused a vast majority of the fires currently afflicting the Amazon rainforest.
VF corporation made the announcement last Friday 30 August, stating that they wouldn’t reconsider the suspension until they had “confidence and assurance” that the sourced materials could not be linked to the environmental damage in Brazil.
"VF Corporation and our brands have decided to no longer directly source leather and hides from Brazil for our international businesses until we have the confidence and assurance that the materials used in our products do not contribute to environmental harm in the country," a spokesperson for the company said, in a statement given to Reuters.
Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) states that there has been a total of 72,843 fires in Brazil this year and more than 1.5 football fields worth of Amazon rainforest are being destroyed per minute, per day – an increase of 80% compared to the same period in the previous year.
A vast majority of these fires have been linked to the poor environmental practices of loggers and ranchers, who have been clearing land to raise cattle or source timber.
