Other leading brands are moving with the times, but Levi’s is still using leather patches to carry their logo on the back of their jeans. Their welfare policy claims that animals’ health and welfare are protected. But the leather comes from filthy factory farms in countries where if legislation exists at all it is rarely enforced. There is a variety of perfectly good alternatives available, so the question is why does Levi’s continue to use, in spite of relentless pressure from PETA, leather from cows slaughtered in atrocious and inhumane ways at the same time causing Amazon deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, the tanning process causes environmental devastation and terrible health problems for tannery workers and dramatically shortens their lifespans. Some are as young as ten years old. I will certainly be boycotting Levi’s until this changes and will encourage others to do the same. I hope the campaign will be successful. I suspect it will be. PETA usually triumphs in the end.
Meanwhile I have finally signed up for updates from this organisation, which I wrote about briefly in Animal Trust:
There was a meeting which I attended which sought to bring together various vegetarian and animal rights groups, to create a set of common basic purpose and principle (not a success). As it happens I brought a few items from my [animal rights] collection along and carefully laid them out on a table in case anyone was interested. No one was, although one woman did manage to knock a glass of water over most of them. I did speak up at one point, saying that there was no point insisting that everyone be vegetarian or otherwise excluded. Too many would just feel “Well I’m not doing that.” Instead we might perhaps unite to promote principles such as those of Compassion in World Farming, an organisation represented at the meeting by its patron Joanna Lumley.
I remain somewhat ambivalent. Of course it would be better not to farm animals at all, and that day will come, but in the meantime it is surely better to do something, no matter how small, than to do nothing at all.
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