"Grand Theft Chaco II: The Vice Continues", October 2021

In September 2020, Earthsight revealed how land belonging to an indigenous people in the Paraguayan Chaco had been illegally cleared for cattle ranching. The investigation exposed the links between these illegal clearances and leather used by car giants BMW and Jaguar Land Rover...

The report and follow-up publications laid bare the Paraguayan state’s failure to uphold environmental laws and protect indigenous rights, enabling illegalities to flourish unchecked for years. Earthsight detailed how a widespread culture of corruption and inaction had taken root in the country’s environment ministry, allowing farms to receive irregular deforestation permits that were often granted after forests had been cleared...

One year on, little has changed. PNCAT continues to be the target of illegal invasions and deforestation, Paraguayan authorities have failed to investigate the illegalities exposed by Earthsight, and the global leather and car industries are still unable to demonstrate how their supply chains are shielded from these problems...

The Paraguayan authorities haven’t just ignored the evidence of illegalities.

Without bothering to check the facts, they have sought to defend the companies responsible...

This lack of accountability has encouraged new illegal activity. Earthsight analysis of satellite data provided by Global Forest Watch reveals that forest clearances for agriculture have continued at PNCAT. At least two new areas were cleared between August 2020 and April 2021 as the figure below shows. Around 100 hectares of this clearance took place in densely forested land...

In the meantime, Paraguayan leather sales to Europe have continued apace...

The car industry has missed another opportunity to be more transparent about supply chain monitoring...

BMW said an audit commissioned by the company after publication of our report “clearly shows that the BMW Group's leather supply chain has no connection to deforestation in Paraguay.” The firm provided no details on how the audit was conducted or its specific results. It did not reply to questions about its current traceability practices. It also declined to answer a question about whether it had been implementing a medium-term strategy previously announced to Earthsight to phase out South American hides from its supply chains.

Jaguar Land Rover stated that its supplier (Pasubio) had assured the car firm that following an ‘extensive investigation’ it had found ‘no evidence of any violation of national law’. Yet the only investigation Pasubio has admitted to doing is obtaining a blanket assurance from a Paraguayan ministry which doesn’t even have jurisdiction over the relevant laws. Once again, Earthsight’s efforts to learn more from Pasubio directly went unanswered...