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Collagen craze drives deforestation and rights abuses [1]

['Elisângela Mendonça', 'Andrew Wasley', 'Fábio Zuker', 'About The Authors', 'Elisângela Mendonça Is An Award-Winning Journalist Specialising In Environment', 'Human Rights Issues', 'More Elisângela Mendonça', 'Andrew Is An Award-Winning Investigative Journalist Specialising In Food', 'Farming Issues', 'More Andrew Wasley']

Date: 2023-03-06

This investigation was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center's Rainforest Investigations Network.





The stench arrives before the lorries do. They are carrying skins that were stripped from cattle carcasses days ago. Flies are everywhere.

The lorries’ destination is Amparo, a small industrial town in São Paulo state, southeastern Brazil. Here, Rousselot, a company owned by the Texan business Darling Ingredients, extracts collagen – the active ingredient in health supplements at the centre of a global wellness craze.

But while collagen’s most evangelical users claim the protein can improve hair, skin, nails and joints, slowing the ageing process, it has a dubious effect on the health of the planet. Collagen can be extracted from fish, pig and cattle skin, but behind the wildly popular “bovine” variety in particular lies an opaque industry driving the destruction of tropical forests and fuelling violence and human rights abuses in the Brazilian Amazon.

An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the Guardian, ITV and O Joio e O Trigo has found that tens of thousands of cattle raised on farms damaging tropical forests were processed at abattoirs connected to international collagen supply chains.



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[1] Url: https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2023-03-06/collagen-wellness-industrys-star-product-drives-deforestation-and-rights-abuses

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