Snakeskin and crocodile skin in fashion: ban or regulate? | Global Ideas | '
Animal rights activists were able to persuade many fashion houses and their fans to do without furs. Snake, crocodile and lizard skins are still sought-after commodities. In recent years, they have made a comeback on the catwalks in Paris, London and New York.
With the products make luxury brands really much money. A snakeskin designer bag can carry three times as much as a cowhide one. But fashion labels like Chanel and Victoria Beckham have banned exotic animal skins from their collections. Luxury retailers like Selfridges want to follow suit.
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The Animal Welfare Organizations People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and Pro Wildlife would like more fashion houses to join.
"We do not need any wildlife products for luxury fashion," says Sandra Altherr, a biologist at Pro Wildlife, opposite ‘. "It damages the ecosystem and also causes the animals great pain."
Other conservation groups, including the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), see things differently. The organization, which regularly rates the level of endangerment of animal species worldwide and publishes it in the form of a list, believes that luxury brands should not remove exotic skins from their collections so quickly. For if the fashion houses act sustainably, IUCN argues, the use of snakes, crocodiles and other exotic animals can actually contribute to species conservation.
Exotic skins are making a comeback on the catwalks in Paris, London and New York
The value of crocodiles and snakes
The demand for exotic animal skins is great. Between 2008 and 2017, more than 10 million skins or derived products such as laces and belts from animals such as lizards, snakes and crocodiles were imported into the European Union (EU). That's what the numbers Pro Wildlife has put together from the CITES trade database.
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CITES is a multilateral agreement that regulates the trade in plants and animals. For example, it prohibits the sale of certain endangered species. But it also allows trade in those species that are not that high on the scale of the threat. Special licenses are required for these species, with strict state surveillance.
Daniel Natusch of IUCN is the best way to ensure, manage and monitor sustainable trade. For him, this also means working with people who trade in animals or animal products and arouse their interest in protecting species. He also believes it is necessary to work with luxury brands to source animal skins from responsible sources.
Reptiles are often hunted in poorer regions of the world, where there are few other ways to make money. Natusch believes that regulated hunting permits people who otherwise have little interest in letting them live to learn to appreciate them more.
"It's pretty hard to persuade people to protect crocodiles or poisonous snakes that live in the same waters their children love to swim in," says the reptile expert. "This method gives particularly poor people the opportunity to attribute value to these animals."
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The proponents of this conservation model point to a major success with saltwater crocodiles in Australia, whose numbers have recovered since the 1970s. Landowners took their eggs and sent them for breeding in special crocodile farms. In an average Billabong, as the Australians call these typical waterholes, which usually contain water during the dry season, there can be around 20 crocodile nests. And each nest can contain 50 to 60 eggs. In 2019, the price per egg in Australia was equivalent to 16.72 euros.
Difficult controls
The model of sustainable use of animals, however, does not support Pro Wildlife. According to the animal welfare organization, neither hunters nor farmers earn the big bucks in the business of exotic animal skins, but the luxury brands themselves.
"Theoretically, I would agree that sustainable yields are a good way for some locals to make money and make it more attractive to preserve wildlife," says Altherr, adding that they found virtually no examples in this area has that work.
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Even the exact control is a challenge. If CITES has granted a permit to trade one species, the dealer must prove where the animal came from. A review is difficult.
Due to the huge number of traded hides and because larger animals are preferred, Altherr assumes that the number of wild catches is actually much higher and probably far exceeds the official, annual quotas for animals.
Some say that the public is less informed about exotic animal skins than furs in the fashion industry
Questionable animal husbandry
Animal rights activists are not only promoting species protection as an argument against the trade in exotic animal skins. You also see ethical problems in animal husbandry.
In 2016, PETA released videos from Vietnam of overcrowded crocodile farms in which animals were kept in poor conditions. The operators supply European luxury goods brands. The organization also says that snakes are nailed to trees and skinned alive because they believe that this leaves the skin supple. Some snakes take hours to die.
Johanna Fuoß from PETA Germany says that people are completely in the dark when it comes to trading exotic hides.
"People know very well about the suffering of the fur animals, but their knowledge of the exotic skins ceases, and they are blind." These animals are alien to many people, and it's harder to make the public aware that they deserve it, too to be treated well, "she says.
Between 2008 and 2017, the European Union imported more than 10 million animal skins
The biologist Natusch, who specializes in reptiles, has also found farms and processing plants where animals were treated "suboptimal". He attributes this to a lack of special education. He admits that sometimes it would be appropriate to transport animals more gently.
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But after being in every known processing plant in Southeast Asia, he says he has never seen snakes that have been skinned alive or exposed to other serious animal welfare problems.
IUCN is working with industry associations to hold workshops on animal welfare and to monitor farms and processing facilities. One of them, the Southeast Asian Reptile Conservation Alliance (SARCA), is cooperating with the French luxury goods group Kering, which also owns the Gucci brand. In 2017, the group purchased a python farm in Thailand to ensure that the snakes are raised according to ethical criteria.
But that's not enough for those who oppose the killing of animals for clothing production.
"There is no species-appropriate or gentle way to kill an animal," says Fuoß, adding that it does not matter to the individual animal why his skin is being peeled off. Even if the skins come from sustainable sources, the animals would always suffer. "Millions of animals die every year for trading in exotic skin and every single animal goes through the same process of painful killing."
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