An investigation by a non-governmental organization has linked the multinationals Zara and H&M, popular clothing brands, to illegal deforestation, land grabbing, violence and corruption in Brazil.
The investigation, released on Thursday, analyzes the huge development of Brazilian cotton production for export and follows the destination of more than 800,000 tons of this contaminated but certified cotton to companies in Asia, where it is transformed into garments for the brands to then sell, especially in Europe.
The accusations come from the British non-governmental research organizationEarthsight, which uses in-depth research to expose environmental and social crimes, injustices and links to global consumption.
"Earthsight" reveals, in the extensive work to which Lusa had access, that it spent more than a year analyzing satellite images, court decisions, shipping records, and going undercover to global trade fairs to locate and track this cotton.
Produced in the Brazilian Cerrado by two large companies (which denied any illegality), the cotton was sold between 2014 and 2023 to eight clothing manufacturers in countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan or Bangladesh, suppliers of Zara and H&M.
The cotton farms in question, says the investigation, have a long history of lawsuits, corruption cases, illegal deforestation of 100,000 hectares of land and misappropriation of land in the Cerrado, a region that covers a quarter of Brazil and is home to 5% of all species in the world, including armadillos and ant-eaters.
More than half of the Cerrado has been cleared for large-scale agriculture, notably for cotton, causing hundreds of species to become endangered due to habitat loss.
By 2030, Brazil is expected to overtake the United States as the world's largest cotton exporter, according to the document. This growth in cotton has led to the decline of traditional communities.
"Earthsight" speaks of a "ruinous mix of corruption, greed, violence and impunity", which has led to the embezzlement of public land and the appropriation of land from local communities, who are subjected to intimidation and cattle rustling.
Based in Spain, Zara is owned by the Inditex Group, which also owns the fashion brands Pull&Bear, Bershka, Massimo Dutti, Stradivarius and Zara Home.
Inditex and Sweden's H&M are the world's largest fashion groups, with a combined profit of around 41 billion dollars in 2022.
