Skewed reporting of Bertin announcement
14/08/2009
Packer and tanning group Bertin, Brazil’s second biggest meat company, has announced that it will have a traceability system for cattle from all farms in Amazon regions withing six months, and for cattle from all feeder farms in the states of Pará, Mato Grosso and Rondonia within two years.
The announcement is the result of discussions that Bertin has held with Greenpeace in the wake of a report the NGO published in June on the impact of the leather and meat industries on deforestation in the Amazon. Bertin has since held two meetings with Greenpeace representatives in Brazil, lasting 11 hours in total.
Bertin’s reassurance that it will monitor supplies of cattle from Amazon regions to make sure none of the animals come from farms that have taken part in illegal deforestation provoked Greenpeace to distribute a triumphalist press release that gave the impression the NGO had been instrumental in bringing about a change of policy at the meat and leather company.
For example, Greenpeace said: “Bertin’s announcement follows tough new policy statements from shoe retailers such as Clarks, Nike, Timberland, Geox and Adidas, in response to [the] Greenpeace report.”
Beyond this self-congratulatory statement, though, Bertin has made it clear that it has not made any real change to its policy. When the report came out, Bertin said immediately that it was confident none of its meat and none of its hides came from source linked to illegal deforestation. It pointed out that 80% of the hides in its tanneries come from its own slaughterhouses, all of which meet government requirements. The other 20% comes from a carefully controlled supplier list. Bertin said it was confident none of its suppliers were in breach of state and federal laws regarding land-clearance, but agreed to carry out an additional audit in the wake of the accusations Greenpeace levelled at the company in its report, and to cease to work immediately with any company it found to be involved in illegal deforestation.
The only additional measure Bertin has agreed to take is to exclude from its list of approved suppliers any livestock farmers that have engaged in “recent” land clearance in the Amazon regions, whether legally or not.
At the time of making this latest announcement, Bertin confirmed that it has always controlled its direct suppliers very carefully, and that it has excluded companies that it has found to be in breach of laws on deforestation and land-grabbing. Its announcement reaffirms its commitment in these areas, a commitment the company already had in place.
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