EL PAÍS openly offers the América Futura section for its daily and global information contribution to sustainable development. If you would like to support our journalism, subscribe here.
Do you know where the leather on the seats and steering wheels of the most expensive cars comes from? Brands such as BMW, Citroen, Jaguar, Land Rover, Peugeot and Porsche buy it from the Italian company Pasubio, the largest leather importer in Paraguay, where the indigenous Ayoreo people have been fighting for decades to stop the deforestation of their land by ranchers.
The work to guard the Ayoreo territory and the dialogue with political actors from Paraguay and abroad have borne new fruits: the company Pasubio has announced that it will stop buying Paraguayan leather from suppliers who invade and deforest its land, where their relatives live in isolation. volunteered in the Gran Chaco, the second largest contiguous forest in South America.
Through the political and legal struggle of this indigenous people of around 7,000 people between Paraguay and Bolivia, hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest have been preserved in recent decades. But its leaders, lawyers and dozens of Paraguayan and international organizations criticize that the illegal invasion by ranchers continues with impunity because of rampant corruption among local authorities.
Last Monday, the Italian tannery Pasubio, one of the leaders in its sector, announced the decision not to purchase leather “from suppliers whose activities directly or indirectly threaten the forests of the uncontacted indigenous population of the Ayoreo people in Paraguay”.
Pasubio's decision comes after 20 years of demands from the Ayoreo people, which in 2016 received a precautionary measure from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights obliging the Paraguayan state to protect its forests and territory, and after a year ago the NGO Survival will this company and Another company called Gruppo Mastrotto reports to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Survival then sent notices to both Italian companies asking them to stop these imports. Gruppo Mastrotto responded and began a dialogue with the NGO, which is still ongoing. However, Pasubio limited itself to sending a short disclaimer at the time, and so Survival, with the support of the Ayoreo who live outside the forest, filed a formal complaint with Italy's National Contact Point (PNC) at the OECD to promote the implementation of the organization's guidelines for multinational companies.
“It seems to me to be a timely decision so that it can have an impact at the local level,” Tagüide Picanerai, one of the affected Ayoreo leaders, told América Futura after learning of Pasubio’s statement.
Indigenous people of the Ayoreo people during a protest for the land allocation in Asunción on February 25, 2015. Santi Carneri
The unknown second largest forest in South America
The Chaco is so large that it stretches across Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil: it features dry forests with ancient trees, savannahs and wetlands that are home to 15 different indigenous peoples, as well as jaguars and other endangered animals.
The Ayoreo people are a unique case in America. All other indigenous communities in voluntary isolation are found in the continent's other large contiguous forest area, the Amazon Basin.
The Ayoreo were virtually the last indigenous people to come into direct contact with colonization in this region of South America. This is attributed to the Chaco's thorny and harsh nature and the bravery and ferocity of its inhabitants, which prevented most European expeditions from entering these forests until well into the 18th century.
The point is that some Ayoreo groups have not yet made this contact voluntarily. Paraguayan and international legislation ensures the prevalence of the right to self-determination of the original peoples of the territory. If they do not want or need to make contact, the surrounding community must respect their decision. And not only that: it has to work to preserve its territory. Some of them are relatives of Tagüide, whose parents were forced to leave the forest in the 1980s.
The Pasubio Group's statement assures that they will cease all business relationships “with Paraguayan suppliers who cannot provide sufficient guarantees regarding the absence of any direct or indirect relationships with existing livestock farms within the Ayoreo Totobiegosode Natural and Cultural Heritage (PNCAT)”. become. However, it is not specified which manufacturers are involved.
But Tagüide, a school teacher and quasi-lawyer, wonders how they will ensure that their suppliers do not invade their territory or that of other indigenous peoples. “This question makes me wonder a little,” he says.
Cows in the municipality of Pirayu, March 2016. Santi Carneri
The connection between the leather used in the automobile industry and the illegal destruction of the Ayoreo forest was proven in an investigation by the NGO Earthsight. In two reports, “Grand Theft Chaco I” and “Grand Theft Chaco II”, Earthsight revealed that almost two-thirds of the skins exported from Paraguay go to Italian companies, mainly Pasubio, whose annual income of 313 million euros accounts for 90% of the automobile depend on industry.
According to these reports, between 2018 and 2019, a farm owned by Caucasian SA and another owned by a partner of Chortitzer Cooperative illegally deforested 2,700 and 500 hectares, respectively, of the Ayoreo People's Reserve, violating government decisions. A third farm, owned by the Yaguareté Porã company, has also been logging and encroaching on this area with livestock for about 20 years.
Earthsight detailed how a widespread culture of corruption and inaction had become established within Paraguay's Ministry of the Environment, allowing farms to obtain irregular logging permits, often issued only after the forests had already been logged.
“We are pleased to hear that Pasubio has committed to boycotting leather from suppliers that threaten the lives and territories of the Ayoreo people in Paraguay, and we hope other companies follow suit,” said Survival's director Caroline Pearce.
In 2001, the government of Paraguay officially recognized an area of 550,000 hectares as the “Ayoreo Totobiegosode Natural and Cultural Heritage Site (PNCAT)”. However, so far the authorities have only transferred about a fifth of the promised lands.
According to the testimony of the Ayoreo people who left the forest and the available anthropological studies, those in voluntary isolation make a living by hunting wild boars, gathering fruits and producing carob powder. They have a fondness for wild honey and turtle soup. They are nomads and regularly cross the border with Bolivia with wooden shoes, clay pots and caraguatá textiles, some of which are so useful for sitting on the ground that some European companies have already copied them.
The last major contact occurred in 2004, when several of them were frightened by the noise of electric saws cutting tree trunks and pursued by hunters' shots. In 2021, some of them approached one of the villages where people already settled, talked to them and left. They asked her to continue in the forest. “The ranchers know full well that there is a precautionary measure in this area, but they still submit projects to the Ministry of the Environment to produce meat here and the ministry approves it, which is a violation of the law,” complains Picanerai.
The leather of the cows that enter the Ayoreo areas is the skin that has been tanned and prepared for industrial use and later ends up in the shape of a steering wheel or seat of a European car. And if Paraguay has anything, it's cows. Twice as many people. Also a lot of space, as much as France, but for 6.1 million inhabitants. It is not even necessary to invade the few remaining forest reserves in an area that is one of the areas with the highest deforestation rates in the world.
Indigenous people of the Ayoreo people play a football match in the municipality of ChaidíSanti Carneri
But it's an activity that moves about $1.7 billion annually. And who owns the land on which the cows graze? Approximately 2.5% of Paraguay's population owns 85% of the country's arable land, and in the Chaco this inequality is evident. The majority of these Paraguayan landowners are officials and soldiers of South America's longest dictatorship, that of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989), who at the time stole and distributed between 8 and 22 million hectares (three times the size of Panama) belonging to indigenous peoples, peasant cooperatives and opponents.
“The powers behind the leather industry in Paraguay must know that the world will not stand idly by as the Chaco Forest and its people are illegally destroyed for profit. […] “Paraguayan authorities must once and for all respect national and international law, evict all haciendas from Ayoreo territory and return the land to these indigenous people,” Survival’s Pearce added.
Until the 1990s, the Stroessner dictatorship denied the existence of the Ayoreo and persecuted them. He had them killed in human hunts. Well into the 2000s, ranchers' unions and even some government officials denied the existence of this centuries-old city.
Today, thanks to the bravery of their leaders, the work of social researchers, journalists and even filmmakers, the Ayoreo's message for the preservation of the Chaco forests is spreading around the world. Today, no one can deny its existence and Pasubio's decision is a step to respect the rights of this people and ensure that anyone who violates them is held accountable.