Where the cattle were raised: tracing the deforestation in EU leather use, 2005–2023

The Commission's assessment of deforestation linked to EU leather counts only direct imports of hides and leather, charged at partner-country intensities, and leaves out leather goods and EU exports. Laroche et al. (2024) already traced EU hide consumption, goods included, to the countries where hides were produced. I extend their physical trade model with stage-specific matrices for raw hides, tanned hides, finished leather and goods (BACI trade, FAOSTAT hide output, DeDuCE v2.1), give a 2005–2023 series, and reconcile the traced figure term by term with exporter attribution of direct imports. In 2015–2020 EU use, including leather in EU-made cars and furniture, was 1.33 million tonnes of raw-hide equivalent a year. At a 5% allocation it embodied 17,574 hectares of deforestation a year, 72% traced to Brazil. Imported goods added 11,148 hectares to the exporter-attributed 20,950, but EU exports removed 15,264, so the traced figure was 0.84 times the exporter figure (0.44–0.93 across conversion factors and balancing). Across seven allocation rules it ranged from 8,787 to 35,411 hectares. About 41% of traced hectares entered the EU from a third country, mostly as goods, led by China and Viet Nam. Levels depend on FAOSTAT's imputed Brazilian hide output: an assumed yield of 30 kg a head lowers them by 21% but leaves the ratio at 0.86. With the Commission's factors, recorded leather exports exceed FAOSTAT's hide output for Brazil and others, a joint problem of factors and imputed data. Preprint, not peer reviewed. Also published at https://x9m8.com/eu-leather-deforestation-cattle-origin/. The zip file contains the code, results and the two independent audits.