Fashion trends, by definition, come and go. The big fashion houses lead the way in creating ‘must have’ lifestyle products the less well known brands tend to follow the trend and there is an increasing number of players which do not shy away from trying to then flood the market with fake designer products,

 

 

Asia News magazine  tells us in a January 2011  cover story about  new trends: “Move over leopard, the star animal print this year is snake. It is being featured not just on bags and accessories but also on dresses.”

 

When such fashion trends involve wildlife products, maybe the time has come to reevaluate what  is acceptable - and might even have been sustainable in the past--be it fur from seals, Shatoosh shawls from the endangered Tibetan Chiru Antelope, or elaborately-patterened skins taken from a wide variety of reptiles.

 

 

The big fashion conglomerates are now represented with their own outlets in all parts of the world. Anywhere they see a potential market, from Cape Town    ------, to Zurich ------ to  Moscow  ------ to Singapore and Hanoi. Their customers are the image-conscious elite.

 

Let’s look at the story behind a python or water lizard who ends up as a hand bag or wrist-watch band, which consumer will find displayed in some of the above outlets.

 

We found that the sales staff we’ve talked to at some of these shops have little understanding of the supply chain resulting in the products they offer—including, for example, items taken from wild species with the consumer being told that they were captive bred on farms.

 

(CORRESPONDING FOOTAGE WITH A HIDDEN CAMERA. THE SOUTH AFRICANS WILL TRY TO GET THIS FOOTAGE IF NOT WE CAN USE THE SEQUENCE FROM AN AIRPORT SHOP WHERE I ASK THE SALES ASSISTANT:

IS THIS FROM PYTHON????

 

Unfortunately the realities on the ground in countries like Indonesia, one of the main suppliers of reptile skins to the world’s exclusive fashion houses, are often very different from the world of clean, clear-eyed, worry-free luxury that these shops promise their customers

 

 

 

Karl Ammann is a conservationist, author and film maker. He researched this story and documented various aspects of the trade with his camera for a larger expose on the wildlife trade in general and the players trying to control it.

 

A range of strange, sometimes desperate, and often shady players are involved in the production process of  these skins with the end the initial producer ending up with a very very small  fraction of the amount the end consumer has to hand over for these products,

 

In case of the python skins and water lizards, for example, let’s  consider the catchers. In Indonesia, they are mostly farmers who work the oil palm plantations that have now displaced the primary rain forests over large parts of this vast island archipelago.

 

 

Sometimes the catchers follow snake trails they find in the sand. Sometimes they encounter the reptiles on the move. Many have learnt that capturing a python is not really difficult. The reptile is approached from behind and can be grabbed by the neck, and then a stick is presented and if it is a big python it  then  wraps around it – their   natural defensive reaction. The snouts of the larger python species are then bound with duct tape, and into the bag they go. Next comes the sale to a regional collector--or if a slaughter/skinning house is nearby, such middle men are cut out.

 

The snake is measured and a price is negotiated and accepted. Generally, for a three to four meter python, with a perfect skin, around 10 dollars (US) will change hands.

 

The slaughter house comes next.

 

The snakes remain stored in these bags for days or sometimes weeks. Without water or food. Some end up crammed into  large wooden holding boxes.

           

We documented that, at least at one of these slaughter houses, the same traders has expanded the trade beyond the snakes and lizards to other reptiles.  In  some cases they do do not shy away from buying up  fully “protected” species. This shipment of soft shell turtles had just arrived from Western Sumatra, destined as a specialty food item  to be air shipped to Singapore. The pick up truck also contained a carton box, with the staff telling our translator that it included highly protected pangolins and the worker trying to hide the box behind the wooden board. While waiting for the unloading of the truck, a seller on a motor bike arrived, showing an undersized python, which was rejected by the dealer. Another seller on another motorbike then showed up with a number of terrapins—and they were bought, despite them also having a fully protected status,

 

 

A recent workshop discussing the status of the Asian tortoises and Fresh Water Turtles found:

 

“the vast majority are nearing extinction in the wild, and very little has been done to address the problem.”

 

 At the python slaughter houses slaughter days are normally scheduled two or three times a week.

 

In this case, the order included both the larger Python Reticulates (there is a problem with pronounciation here: It is  larger reticulated python or python reticulates and for the smaller one it is Curtus species or Blood python – whichever you prefer) and the shorter Curtus species which seems more common in the western parts of Sumatra then the larger one.

 

Out of the bags they come; In some cases  hammers are used in some case iron rods  to kill them if they are lucky and knocking them unconcsous if the brain is not hit and destroyed with these blows.

 

As  a result a certain number of these snakes are clearly  sill alive, waiting to be hung on a hook for further processing.

 

 

Then they are filled with a water hose to stretch their bodies, and with it the skin, which will make the subsequent removal easier.

 

The snakes are kept in this stretched position for some two to three hours.

 

 

Next a razor blade is used to cut the skin down the length of the body.

 

Then, decapitation.

 

In some skinneries the heads are not removed prior to the skinning of the snakes, and it can be assumed that they are indeed skinned while still  alive.

 

(THIS FROM RES FOOTAGE 1-54)

 

The body is then taken down and fixed with a rope while the skin is pulled off.

 

Then the snake  is cut open and the gall bladder removed, which is then dried and sold as a Traditional Chinese Medicine product. Intestines are removed at the same time.

 

At this point it becomes clear that several of the female pythons were pregnant, and thus clutches of eggs are lost and they will  not contribute to the wild stock in future.

 

In what must have been a recently caught snake, there is a rat body  in the stomach, still pretty   much intact.

 

The skin goes in a bucket and  so does the meat.

 

Then comes the stretching of the skins by nailing them down on wooden boards.

 

The story concerning  the production of  water lizard skins which are also in demand for luxury leather products, is similar: from capture   ----- to transport, ------ to sale,  ------- to rating and evaluation, -------- to killing and skinning, ------ to stretching and drying of the skins 

 

Indonesia exports annually close to half a million of these lizards, in form of their skins,  to all parts of the world. The country’s ministry of tourism nevertheless decided to  use the somewhat bigger and more famous Komodo Dragon as the flagship species at a tourism exhibit in Moscow, trying to attract tourists to see some live lizards. The slogan, however, was not: “Watch the big ones and wear the smaller ones!”

 

Having elaborated on the animal welfare and cruelty aspect of harvesting reptiles for the fashion industry in places like Indonesia.  Let’s now also evaluate the criteria of “sustainability” which is meant to  be guaranteed under the CITES convention which governs the trade.

 

The Convention for the International Trade in Endangered Species  is a Geneva based UN body meant to regulate the trade and ensure that it is conducted in a sustainable manner. It approves the export quota of commercially traded species set by the member countries. Control measures are supposedly meant to guarantee that the “harvesting” of a species  will not impact its survival in the wild.

 

 

An outsider observing a CITES proceeding might conclude that they are governed not by law or principle, not by questions of compliance and enforcement, but by the pleasing sense of solidarity among long time friends.

 

 

CITES also allows the export  and import of personal effect items from  listed species.  This without any kind of import or export permit provided some conditions are met.

 

In the case of Indonesia, we  learnt that all the second and third rate skins are used to manufacture tourist souvenirs  which are then sold in tourist markets such as Bali. These consumption figures, and, as we will later see, all the smuggled skins, are not included in the official CITES trade statistics and are not considered when discussing the “sustainability” aspect. Even the officially agreed on quotas are regularly exceeded,

 

 

Even in- flight shopping magazines feature reptile skin products. For instance, the Garuda Mail Order Catalogue  -Garuda being  the national carrier of Indonesia - includes bags and purses from “Matte Snake and Shiny Crocodile Patent.”  This  clearly represents commercial trade with no import or export permits involved,

Switzerland is  the biggest importers of reptile skins  originating  in SE Asia, mostly in service of  the watch industry. Switzerland is also the depository country for the CITES Convention and as such has  a special role to play and is meant to be a shining example in terms of compliance,

 

Switzerland’s domestic laws will not allow the import of personal effect items of CITES protected species without a permit. Thus, any tourist arriving with a snake skin bag bought on Garuda airline should legally not be allowed to  keep this bag without an appropriate export permit from Indonesia.

 

We went to see the head of the CITES management authority of Switzerland and asked him to what extent the contradictory regulations concerning the rules governing the import of personal effect items might create confusion and open up trade loop holes.

 

INTERVIEW.

 

Indonesia in turn has domestic legislation which stipulates that all reptile skins leaving the country need to be tanned prior to export.

 

A Medan based dealer explains to us that this creates a major incentive for traders to beat the system and export skins illegally via Malaysia or Singapore.

 

The top end of the fashion market prefer their skins tanned in Europe where the overall quality for the finished product is considered higher.

 

(HIS PIECE TO CAMERA)

 

The same dealer also stated on camera what several of the others confirmed off the record: There are a lot more skins being produced locally then can be exported under the established quota. This is another incentive to smuggle skins to Malaysia and export under their quota, which appears to be a lot higher then anything Malaysia will ever produce themselves.

Export statistics for the python reticulates indicate show exports of between 60 000 and 100 000 skins annually, Based on most expert view points this far exceeds the production potential of Malaysia,

 

An internal document produced by the Directorate General of Forest Protection in Indonesia explains the modus operandi for smuggling skins:

           - Many exports from Malaysia to Singapore are only on paper

            - Raw skins are illegally shipped from Sumatra to Singapore

           -  Singapore re exports them as Malaysian origin

 

The magnitude of this illegal trade is outlined with figures from 2001. While Malaysia, for that year recorded an export of 62,000 skins of blood python skins, for the same year Singapore re exported 166,000 skins which they stated they imported from  Malaysia.

 

The same study says that

-         Malaysia is probably not even a range state for the Blood Python

-         The species is also fully protected in Malaysia.

 

The same is then confirmed by officers of Traffic, an NGO which monitors the trade in wildlife at their Kuala Lumpur offices:

 

 

There are also documented cases of skins being shipped out with fake or stolen CITES permits.

 

This Singapore based dealer tried to export 16,000 python skins in transit from Sarawak in Borneo. He tried to do this with stolen CITES permits from Malaysia. We tried to get some answers as to the status of the case from a CITES enforcement officer in Singapore,

He was not willing to discuss specifics of the case,

 

 

As with all such enforcement success stories, the assumption has to be that for each case resulting into some kind of detection or  action, ten cases go unnoticed.

 

When CITES member countries with a generally poor quality of governance have local officials in charge of all aspects of enforcement , it often amounts to asking “The fox to watch the hen house”. An aspect we illustrated in an earlier film dealing with the export of some 130 primates from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

 

The only CITES official in Geneva dealing with enforcement issues considers himself an international civil servant with no mandate to carry out any investigations or go beyond asking the relevant national officials to respond to certain queries, He did so in the above case:

 

 

He was not available for an interview on topics covered in this documentary but one of his collegues: Juan Carlos Vasquez who is the secretariats communication and outreach officer answered some of our questions.

 

INTERVIEW

 

 

Going back to our friendly dealer in Medan. . . . He also confirms in the interview that he understands the basic market forces as far as the luxury accessory items produced with his skins and what makes the end consumer tick.

 

(I WOULD SAY WE NEED A TRANSCRIPT OF EVERYTHING HE SAYS AND THEN ADD IT AS CAPTIONS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE IMAGE)

 

He also  allowed us to see and film the tens of thousands of skins he holds in storage. Seeing these immense quantities, the question arose: to what extend is he stock piling to affect market prices? Or maybe he has realized that supplies are declining and that the demand will remain stable or increase, therefore anticipating higher future price.,

 

 

Not all the dealers were as friendly as Mr. Rusan. Another Medan based skin trader and tannery owner kept us waiting in front of the closed door of his premises, after we were told he would arrive for an interview. Next a police officer showed up to keep a close eye on us and our movements. We got the picture and moved on,

 

We went to Vietnam next, Vietnam is the second biggest exporter of python skins in SE

Asia.

 

 (CHECK CITES STATISTICS. CHECK THE NUMBER DECLARED AS CAPTIVE BORN.)

 

However, compared to Indonesia, Vietnam declares that most of its python skin exports come from captive born snakes. The dealers in Indonesia when questioned on the feasibility of breeding pythons in captivity already made it clear that it would be a lot more costly then  buying wild caught specimens.

 

In Vietnam we first visited a farm in  the north which is also breeding cobras; we filmed concrete pits with small cobras intertwined and covered by banana (These were not Banana leaves but Palm leaves instead) leaves, and they showed us some adult cobras in pits in the ground.

 

Eating Cobra meat and drinking their blood is considered a specialty item by some sections of Vietnamese society, and the meat and blood of a slaughtered cobra goes for about U$ 120 in this specialized restaurant in Hanoi.

 

Back at the farm and after showing us the cobra breeding set up  they decided to show us the part of the building where they are holding their python collection,

 

The pythons are kept by the dozens in these wooden boxes. There is no sign of any breeding pits or any baby snakes,  The owner, however, was happy to offer an annual supply of 1000 meters of  skin at a cost of about U$ 50 per meter of  a dried but not  tanned product.

 

The farm we visited in the South is owned by the military and is a  for profit operation which also sells snake wines and a range of other snake based by products

 

The official guide spoke quite good English. She showed us the python collection and we picked the biggest, an 8 year old reptile weighing some  20. Kgs and we did the calculation of what it had cost to feed the snake per week and what it would have cost to get it  to its present size in a captive environment,

 

Again no small pythons were anywhere in sight; there were no pits in which to keep males and females as they did with all the other species.

 

 

At the end our lady guide did offer to supply skins in large quantities at the pretty standard rate of about U$ 50 per meter

 

Once again when it comes to sustainability issues relating to  captive borne versus wild caught in CITES declarations, the system does not work, There is little doubt that Vietnam mostly exports skins from wild caught snakes and not there is little breeding of pythons going on in captivity,

 

Howver the  C’s on this CITES export statistics shows that Vietnam claims that most of its python export are captive form on these farms.

 

 

Overall the policy makers involved in this trade must accept that there are a range of problems when it comes to regulating it and that continuing to endorse  the status quo can not be justified.

 

We started off with by dealing with cruelty and animal welfare issues affecting the trade and the possible infractions of national laws when importing  these skins into countries which have specific regulations governing the import of animal products where the production processes involves aspects of cruelty.

 

We decided to further follow up on this issue and  consulted Prof. Michael Pee, a  prominent herpetologist and veterinarian at the University of Leipzig (a problem with pronouncement of ‘Leipzig’ I can call you and  give it to you) in Germany. We showed him some of he slaughter footage and to get his view point on pain perception in reptiles and accepted guidelines for slaughtering or euthanasia of reptiles

 

SOME INTERVIEW COMMENTS

 

 

 

While the end consumers of  luxury brand accessories made out of reptile skins are in most cases not aware of what we have illustrated so far in this documentary, the fashion houses producing the items all seem to claim to adhere to ecologically sound procurement of their raw materials. Such claims simply do not correspond with the realities we documented on the ground.

 

When Swiss TV first showed some of this footage, Nick Hayek, the  Chief Executive Officer of the Swatch Group, which is the biggest Swiss watch manufacturer, responded by stating  that his management had decided to immediately stop working with skins of wild caught reptiles.

 

Besides major corporations there is also the state of California in the United States which has decided it can do without python skin, A law going back to the 1970 does not allow the import of such skins and as a consequence even fashion capitals like Los Angeles and Rodeo Drive  have to limit what items they offer when it comes to reptile skin products.

 

We also traveled to Paris to get the view point of some of the leading fashion houses using reptile skins in their production lines.

 

We started off with e-mail exchanges with  Hermes, the PPR group which includes Gucci and the LVMH conglomerate which owns the Louis Vuitton brand and Dona Karan among others.

The representatives of Gucci did not agree to go on camera but decided to read a statement over the telephone,

 

INSERT>

 

 

 

The LVMH group sent us an e-mail using the CITES convention and having import and export permits as a fig leave to hide behind. (the narration has to make it clear that the sentence ends here)

 

 

 

PIECE TO CAMARA AT THE PARIS OFFICE,

 

 

In the meantime they have no problem to also tell their consumers via their web page how environmentally advanced their production practices are:

“… precious leathers that become fine leather goods …. Such traditions instill a profound respect for nature which translates into efforts to preserve beautiful landscapes, PROTECT BIODIVERSITY, and ensure consumer health. HARMLESS PRODUCTION METHODS and impeccable quality of proven products.”

 

Very noble words indeed--if only these sentiments could be extended to some  fellow creatures, The reptiles we documented dying in this documentary would probably find it hard to classify their demise being based on A HARMLESS PRODUCTION METHOD.

 

 

 

(AT THIS POINT ALL THE HARDEST MATERIAL OF PYTHONS AND LIZARDS STILL ALIVE IN THE BUTCHERING PROCESS GOING OVER INTO THE CREDITS AND TO HAVE THE LYRICS OF ROGER WHITTACKER’S “MAKE WAY FOR MAN”)