As US Activists Make Brands Dance to Anti-Leather Tune, Kangaroo Conservation Takes a Hit

On 14 March, footwear giant Nike announced that it would stop using kangaroo skins for its shoes this year. The company said in a statement that it would instead launch a new line of Tiempo football boots, called the Tiempo Legend Elite, with a proprietary synthetic material that replaces the use of kangaroo leather.

The Nike decision came on the heels of the Puma announcement of 2 March. The Puma statement said it would stop producing football boots with kangaroo leather altogether this year. Instead, Puma said it was re-launching its Puma King range with a synthetic material they preferred to call K-Better.

The Nike-Puma announcements were gleefully welcomed by the so-called Kangaroos Are Not Shoes campaign, run by the US group Center for a Humane Economy. Its president, Wayne Pacelle, gushed rhetoric: "Nike’s announcement that it will end use of kangaroo skins for its athletic shoes is a seismic event in wildlife protection, and tremors will be felt all over the world, especially in Australia where the mass commercial slaughter of kangaroos occurs. Non-animal-based fabrics are athletically and morally superior, and in March we’ve seen two of the three largest brands in athletic shoes pledge to end their use of kangaroo skins and to bring relief to these iconic marsupials in Australia."

Such strident campaigns would have had a bearing on Nike, but there had been a legal context too. In January, a bill was introduced in the US state of Oregon that aimed to ban the sale of kangaroo parts. Democratic Oregon senator Floyd Prozanski, who introduced the bill, asserted in a statement: "It’s unconscionable that millions of native wild animals in Australia have been killed for the sake of high-end soccer cleats worn by a subset of elite soccer players." Nike is based in Oregon.

There was a deluge of chest-thumping statements. But, there was only one problem: decisions were being taken in the US, half way around the world from where kangaroos exist. The way it worked marked uncanny resemblance to how American foreign policy often works: armtwisting others into abject submission.

There was no talk of science, and none of indigenous peoples. Nevertheless, it was a resounding victory, and the echo could be heard right away.

Within days, ABC reported on the owners of an Adelaide-based tannery already planning to down its shutters, while those from a 130-year-old tannery in Queensland said it could be badly affected. The network quoted Garry Trindall, an Aboriginal man in northern NSW who has been harvesting kangaroos for more than 50 years: "When Captain Cook came here, there were hardly any kangaroos because they could only live along the river. But when the white man settled, the farming and the water that they used for it allowed the kangaroos to multiply by the millions."

Trindall had something interesting to say: "As an Aboriginal person, we know our country. We know our land. If you stop the professional shooters and the Aboriginal people from harvesting, you'll get people shooting kangaroos willy nilly. If prices for the carcasses go down because there's less demand for the leather, then more kangaroos will have to be killed to keep up the same income." Profound words, but those couldn’t make sense to American activists.

What Trindall was essentially talking about is ecological balance. Trindall spoke about how European settlements disturbed ecological balance as it had existed since time.

In 2011, three conservationists Brett Howland, David and Iain Gordon wrote about a research study of theirs: "Historically, Aboriginal hunting, drought and predators such as dingoes have controlled kangaroo populations. The loss of these controls in many areas has allowed kangaroo populations to flourish. In some areas, there are more than 300 kangaroos per sq km. At such large numbers, kangaroos graze on grassy vegetation until it is like lawn, which leaves no shelter for other animals, such as insects, birds and reptiles."

They concluded: "This research adds to a growing body of evidence that too many kangaroos can harm the environment—just like too many sheep, cattle, horses or any other large herbivores can."

But even a single kangaroo had been one too many for the Versace fashion house which in 2020 stopped using kangaroo skins in its products, succumbing to animal activist group LAV. Fabri Blacklock, a textile artist who has also worked with Aboriginal women’s artistic practices like possum skin cloak making and weaving, wrote: "Versace’s concerns may have been allayed by understanding more about our traditions and practices."

Blacklock pointed out: "The use of kangaroo skins in fashion can be done ethically if the code is reviewed in consultation with Aboriginal people and enforced properly. The industry has the potential to produce and support sustainable business opportunities for Aboriginal communities."

She contended: "While the bushfires have killed millions of Australian native animals, kangaroo culls are managed to have limited impact on the population. We should focus our energy on saving Australian native animals that are close to extinction and lobbying for a stricter ethical code for shooters that can be legally enforced to ensure kangaroos are killed humanely."

It is ironic that the same thread of logic needs to be re-woven every time activists in the US or Europe go hammer and tongs at kangaroo leather. In 2015 when the US state of California brought back its ban on kangaroo products, conservationists John Woinarski, Rosie Cooney and Christopher Johnson underlined: "The ongoing argument over sustainability of the kangaroo harvest is a misguided and poorly informed distraction from the genuinely urgent task of preventing further extinctions of species like these and helping the survivors to recover. Worse, if these critics were to succeed in ending kangaroo harvesting, the quality of habitat for threatened species could decline further."

Why conservation science is disregarded by Western activists is bit of a mystery. But what would now beg attention is how the Australian meat/leather industry should grapple with a ban that is bound to have a far-reaching adverse impact. And, what would be conservation's answers?