Proponents and opponents seemed to agree the proposal was a result of leather industry lobbying by producers in countries such as Brazil and Italy.<\/p>\n
Compliance \u2018reasonably easy\u2019 \u2013 leather company <\/p>\n
New Zealand\u2019s Tasman Tanning Company is an end-to-end hides and skins processor with plants in its Whanganui home and in the South Island\u2019s Timaru.<\/p>\n
Its leathers were used predominantly in footwear, upholstery and aviation sectors with brands like Rockport, Blundstone and DeWalt, mostly in key markets including the United States, Europe and China.<\/p>\n
Chief executive Neville Dyer said the proposed EUDR change would reduce its export compliance paperwork.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, it\u2019s a little bit of a relief,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were pretty well prepared for it, particularly our supply partners. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey had done a lot of work for the export of the meat, and it related a lot to the meat processing and recording.\u201d<\/p>\n
The local meat industry invested in a nationwide project to map out deforested farmland for beef to help producers comply with the new system, saying less than 1% of beef-producing land in Aotearoa was deforested.<\/p>\n
Dyer said it was well-positioned for the incoming system as it tracked batch processing and adhered to the National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) system for transparency.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got our own traceability system that runs through our hides processing, but the fact that we could relate it back to the NAIT tag was going to make it reasonably easy to transition to be compliant,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, it seems that some of the bigger players in the world have decided that it was too hard for them. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo they have managed to lobby the European Commission, and that looks like it will be dropped for leather and associated products. So one less process in terms of compliance that we have to go through.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company employed just under 300 people across its two sites, handling up to 850,000 hides each year.<\/p>\n
While the EUDR sought to target countries such as Brazil and Indonesia, New Zealand was considered a low-risk trading partner due to its strong livestock and forest traceability schemes and environmental farming practices.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, increasing afforestation for carbon forestry was an issue causing concern for New Zealand farmers locally.<\/p>\n
EUDR offers sustainable producers a competitive edge \u2013 advocate<\/p>\n
Mighty Earth is a global nature-focused advocacy organisation that supported the EUDR and its inclusion of leather.<\/p>\n
Senior adviser Madrid-based Isabel Fern\u00e1ndez Cruz told RNZ the organisation was surprised by the proposal, which she said was a result of \u201cvery aggressive\u201d industry lobbying.<\/p>\n
She said the commission\u2019s own analysis showed that leather was a source of deforestation, and also a cost-effective way to reduce Europe\u2019s deforestation footprint.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe European Commission has made many assessments, and their own findings clearly say that leather should be kept in the regulation because of the benefits and the logic of having leather included if you have the beef,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s totally nonsense, because it doesn\u2019t make any sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the regulation aimed to create a level playing field for companies.<\/p>\n
\u201cProducers like, as you mentioned, coming from New Zealand that are sourcing on a sustainable basis, and they have standards that are well documented.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor them, they probably gain more access to the European Union market, because complying with the EUDR will make them more competitive.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo in that sense, I think the EUDR is a big opportunity for those producers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fern\u00e1ndez Cruz said keeping leather in the scope would give consumers the guarantee they were asking for, that those products would be deforestation-free.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the end, also having the leather in the scope of the regulation will guarantee that product made out of that leather are also not coming from the deforested areas, and that\u2019s also a big step for consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leather and the global deforestation problem<\/p>\n
In its draft act report, the European Commission said excluding downstream leather products (or finished products) from the scope created a \u201cfragmented and incoherent approach\u201d for the leather sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cConsidering the differentiation of the leather downstream value chain from the meat value chain, asymmetries in trade flows between meat and hides, and the relatively low economic value of cattle skins and hides compared to meat within the overall cattle production, economic operators in the Union have limited leverage to demand the information necessary to comply with Regulation (EU) 2023\/1115 from their suppliers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations said in 2021 that agricultural expansion drove 90% of global deforestation, with more than half of that due to the conversion of forest to cropland and just under half for livestock grazing.<\/p>\n
It said in 2020, 178 million hectares of forest were lost worldwide in the three decades prior, with the highest annual net losses of forest area recorded in the decade in Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Deforestation and peatland degradation also contributed roughly 13% of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to a 2019 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.<\/p>\n
The environmental policy was estimated to reduce deforestation by about 8.09 million hectares, about the size of Austria, when it came into effect.<\/p>\n
Since first entering into force in June 2023, the EUDR has been revised twice, easing requirements for those from lower-risk countries \u2013 including Aotearoa \u2013 as well as for small-time producers, who would face the requirements from June 2027, as opposed to December for the remainder.<\/p>\n