Driving Deforestation: European Luxury Cars' Impact on Indigenous Lands revealed how major car brands such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz source leather from Italian tanneries that, in turn, buy hides from Paraguayan companies implicated in illegal deforestation — particularly in the ancestral territory of the Ayoreo Totobiegosode, one of the last peoples in the Americas living in voluntary isolation.
From 20 to 24 April 2026, Porai Picanerai and Rosalino Darajidi Picanerai, leaders of the Ayoreo Totobiegosode people of the Paraguayan Chaco, travelled to Italy in an action organised together with Survival International, the NGO that has filed the original OECD complaint over the leather trade.
It was the first time they ever left Paraguay to raise the issue abroad. Over the course of the week they were received by the Vatican's Pontifical Commission for Latin America, by Italy's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and by the Human Rights Committee of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, presenting documented evidence of illegal logging inside their territory, including journalists’ findings.
They also held a protest outside the offices of the Italian leather industry association in Milan, carrying placards reading "Non sulla nostra pelle" ("Not at the cost of our skin") and "Vuestro cuero acabará matando mi bosque y a mi pueblo" ("Your leather will end up killing my forest and my people"). Association representatives initially refused to meet them, then agreed to receive a written note after the protest drew media attention. "No compren ese cuero más hasta que los territorios indígenas estén en manos indígenas" ("Stop buying that leather until indigenous territories are back in indigenous hands"), Darajidi Picanerai told reporters.
Paraguay's embassy in Rome declined to meet the delegation. The government's Minister of Industry and Commerce, Marco Riquelme, publicly rejected the allegations as a "total distortion of reality."
Image by Pietro Fanti / Survival International: Porai Picanerai and Darajidi Picanerai, the two Ayoreo leaders in Milan, in the demonstration against the violation of their territory, supported by European activists.
Read more:
- El viaje de un pueblo indígena a Roma desata la furia de la industria del cuero, El País, 29/04/2026
- Dos indígenas Ayoreo en Europa ponen en crisis la exportación del cuero paraguayo, El Otro País, 05/05/2026
