CLE action plan to counter U.S. agency's campaign

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, APRIL 28. The Council for Leather Exports (CLE), under the Union Commerce Ministry, has condemned the ``engineered debate on cruelty to cow for leather'' even while calling upon the leather industry to ``persuade'' the sources of its raw material to observe the laws of the country in respect of animal welfare.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday against the background of a campaign being carried out by the U.S.-based PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), a voluntary organisation, for boycott of leather products made in India, leaders of the CLE as also the industry said the Indian leather sector provided direct and indirect employment to 16 million persons, a large proportion of them being women.

The leather industry had no direct or indirect involvement in any of the alleged acts of cruelty to animals in the country, though the CLE as also the industry would undertake a drive to prevail upon all segments of the value chain in the leather sector to observe the laws of the land on treatment of animals.

Mr. M. M. Hasheem, Chairman, CLE, and office-bearers of industry associations including Mr. Rafeeque Ahmed and Mr. Mohan Srinivas, drew attention to possible extraneous motives behind PETA's campaign which, if successful, would only lead to use of non- leather products such as synthetics replacing an eco-friendly material like leather in India's markets like the U.S. and Europe.

It would also lead to import of non-Indian hides/skins/leather for making leather products for export from India. In essence, the PETA campaign seemed to be a case of erecting a ``non-tariff barrier'' (NTB) to India's exports.

Already GAP, a leading buyer of leather garments in the U.S., had cancelled orders worth $5 million for Indian leather garments as a result of ``militant'' actions of PETA in large consumer stores in the U.S. Some bulk buyers of leather products abroad had started insisting on a declaration that products procured from India did not use Indian hides as raw material, they said.

Dr. T. Ramasami, Director, Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI), said the Indian leather industry was a ``scavenging industry'' inasmuch as it helped avert an ecological disaster by utilising and processing hides and skins of millions of fallen animals. Leather products from cow hides accounted for only ten per cent of the total export of the Indian leather sector, and 65 per cent of these contained leather made from hides of fallen animals.

The action plan being implemented by the CLE to counter the ``misleading campaign'' by PETA includes worldwide distribution of a video film focussing on the ground reality about investments, employment and environmental and ethical practices of the Indian leather industry, and approaching chief secretaries of State governments to enforce laws in respect of cruelty to animals. The CLE has advised all tanners to desist from having business with dealers of hides and skins who may be directly or indirectly involved in procuring hides from cruel methods of slaughter. It proposed to educate traders and dealers in cattle for slaughter on appropriate and acceptable modes of transport and slaughter of animals.

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