As CEO of FurCanada I am thrilled to announce that our very own master furrier and production manager Panagiotis “Panos” Panagiotidis is running a new series of workshops for aspiring designers at our facilities in Nanaimo, BC. Panos has teaching credentials from the Fur School of Kastoria, Greece, and three decades of experience in the fur trade, in Europe and now here in Canada. He is knowledgeable and resourceful, and his skills are beyond measure.

Before I talk about our new workshops, let me tell you about my journey with Panos. It all started In early 2014 when I contacted Professor Pia Blomström of the Centria University of Applied Sciences in Pietarsaari, Finland. She was teaching a wide-range of world-class degrees and workshops designed to further the knowledge and understanding of fur designers and furriers from around the world.

Later that year my partner and I flew to Helsinki to attend a sale by Fur Harvesters Auction held in conjunction with Saga Furs. After the auction concluded, we took the train to northern Finland to meet Pia. We toured the university and fur workshop, and met some of the students and even the mayor. My reasons for meeting with Pia were twofold: to gain knowledge on running workshops, and to seek out one of her students to join us in Canada as a furrier. Our then long-time furrier from Vancouver, Achilles Michoulous, was wanting to retire soon, so I needed to act quickly and find a replacement.

“Is This a Joke?”

After trying unsuccessfully to attract one of her former students, Pia called her good friend at the Royal College of Art in London, Professor Vasilis Kardasis. “There’s this guy,” she explained, meaning me, “who is seeking a furrier to join his team in Western Canada. But he doesn’t manufacture garments. All fur companies produce garments, but not this guy! His main lines are home decor and taxidermy.”

The good professor told her, “Pia, I have the right person for Calvin. I’ll call you in a few days and let you know the results.” The person he had in mind, of course, was Panos, with whom he had created, produced and taught the Greek Summer Fur School program for seven successful years.

Well those “few days” turned into a month or so, because when Vasilis first called Panos, it didn’t go quite as expected! Vasilis thought this position in Canada would be a good opportunity for Panos and his family. But Panos just started to laugh and continued laughing for the next five days! “Is this a joke?” he asked Vasilis. “A trick question? Are you drunk? What’s wrong with this Calvin guy? Doesn’t he know how to advertise for a furrier in Canada? There’s a furrier on every street corner in Canada. Canada is the fur trade!“

But that was only half the joke.

Eventually Panos arrived in Nanaimo to join our team, and for his first two years we hired an apprentice to assist him. The apprentice was shaping up so well, with talent and attention to detail, that Panos wanted to send her to the Summer Fur School in Greece. So he called the powers that be in Europe to discuss the process of sending a young lady as an apprentice furrier to the school. Needless to say, they were shocked by the request and asked Panos if this was a joke! Canada had not produced a furrier in decades, we were told.

It’s not strictly true that Canada has not produced a furrier in decades, but it’s not far wrong. So that’s the whole joke, and it could make a blog post all on its own!

Ultimate Goal

Since Panos arrived in Nanaimo in 2019, we’ve embarked upon producing our 10-day Learning Hub of Education & Design School in conjunction with West Coast Indigenous First Nations, and now we have our new five-day workshop.

We’ve always kept Vancouver Island University, Nanaimo in the loop on our various programs, as they requested, as our ultimate goal is to produce a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree majoring in fur, located in British Columbia.

Young fur students can then take their degrees and become furriers, fur designers, or marketers of fur products, and take their knowledge and love of fur back to their home communities in rural or urban Canada. They can introduce fur to their friends, family and the general public, one person at a time.

We believe this is an important part of ensuring the future health of Canada’s fur trade. For several decades now, many of us – myself and FurCanada included – have been so busy chasing export sales that we’ve forgotten to pay attention to our domestic market. Our workshops are one of many stepping stones for students to learn how to work with fur and then, hopefully, convince the Canadian public to continue buying home-grown fur products.

Our New Workshop

So here’s what we’re offering in our new workshops:

• Program period: October 2021 to April 2022.
• Duration of each workshop: Five days.
• Class sizes: There are a minimum of three students per class, and a maximum of seven.
• Levels: Students are divided into three skill levels from novice to expert, with no mixing of levels. To help us pick the appropriate level, participants first fill out a questionnaire about their current level of knowledge and skills.
• Skills to be taught include: Treating furs before they can be used, grading, pattern making, cutting with a furrier’s knife, opening skins, repairing damaged skins, blocking, sewing by machine and by hand, and caring for and cleaning the final product.
• Skin types: Students will work with seal, beaver, fox, wild mink, Canadian sable (marten), bobcat and lynx.
• Covid-19 protocols: All participants must be fully vaccinated. Social distancing and other safety protocols are observed.
• Cost: A course costs 892 CAD inclusive of tax, with a 200 CAD deposit due at registration time and the balance payable on arrival. Refreshments and all fur supplies are covered, but accommodation and travel are at the participants’ expense.

If you would like to learn more about our new five-day workshops studying under master furrier Panos Panagiotidis, please visit FurCanada’s website.

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Animal welfare and sustainability are both commendable goals for any company’s strategic plan, but they’re also like chalk and cheese. They’re unrelated, which means you don’t advance one by advancing the other. Yet these days, whenever a designer, brand or retailer announces it is dropping fur supposedly for animal welfare reasons, it also claims this will make it more sustainable. This is totally illogical, and they must be called out for it.

Worse still, the deceit appears to be intentional, not just the result of lazy thinking. In a conscious and cynical bid to associate themselves with two of the hottest buzzwords in marketing today, companies are pitching the message, “We believe in animal welfare and sustainability, so we won’t be using furry animals anymore. (Just don’t ask about all the other ones.)”

So why should the fur trade cry “Foul”? Because sustainability is the strongest argument in favour of fur, and we need to defend it against misuse. Now the debate is being twisted and co-opted to make it appear that fur is the very opposite of sustainable.

First let’s look at sustainability and animal welfare separately, and then see how some sneaky companies pretend they are related.

Sustainability Is One Thing …

Just about every business today claims to be striving for greater sustainability, and with good reason. Not only is it good for the planet, it also sells! It’s something customers want to hear. So even if your business is not sustainable today, at least say you are trying, and promise some vague delivery date like 2030.

For a few lucky industries, including the fur trade, sustainability has already been achieved. Historically, it wasn’t always the case, as some wild species were over-harvested. But with the advent of fur farming and a raft of regulations covering harvest sizes and trade, the modern industry has become a model of sustainability.

Here are its main credentials:

• Furbearers, whether trapped or farmed, are a renewable natural resource.
• No endangered species are used.
• Fur farming provides extra protection for wildlife as production can be adjusted to meet changing demand. (This is true for all livestock farming.)
• Farmed furbearers consume leftovers from the production of human food.
• Trappers provide vital information and assistance to wildlife managers.
• Fur is fully biodegradable, even after processing, no matter what animal rights groups claim.
• A fur garment can last for decades, or be restyled as fashions change. It is the complete opposite of wasteful “fast fashion”.

These credentials look even stronger when you compare real fur to fake fur made from non-biodegradable, non-renewable oil.

… Animal Welfare Is Another

Animal welfare is a different issue entirely. While sustainability is concerned with quantifiable inputs such as reproduction rates and environmental impacts, animal welfare deals with the quality of life and death of the animals we use.

It’s difficult to explain in logical terms how companies bundle animal welfare and sustainability together, because the “logic” they employ is false. They first present an erroneous argument, hope we don’t notice, and then use this argument to justify their business strategy. It’s like saying, “2 + 2 obviously equals 5, we can all agree on that. So now let’s focus on that number 5.”

The false logic they want us to fall for is typically along the following lines. “Treating animals well will result in a kinder and gentler world, which we all want to live in. That world must also be sustainable. Therefore, being kinder to animals is integral to ensuring the future sustainability of our planet. And since it’s impossible to achieve an acceptable level of welfare in the fur trade, the most sustainable option is not to use fur at all.”

QED: Fur is unsustainable.

And when you’ve finished wrestling with the twisted logic, take special note that companies are using it only to justify dropping fur. Not leather. Or feathers. Or any other animal products. For these, it’s business as usual. In other words, the level of animal welfare in producing crocodile handbags or goose down is acceptable, and therefore these products are sustainable. What?

Case Studies

Now let’s look at three real-life examples of fashion companies that have dropped fur, and see the knots they tie themselves in to justify it.

Gucci: In 2017, CEO Marco Bizzarri shocked the fashion world by announcing that his company would be dropping fur. He also announced that Gucci had signed on to the Fur Free Retailer program of the Fur Free Alliance, a group that, in its own words, wants to end the fur trade by “raising the serious animal welfare issues related to fur farming and trapping.” The Alliance expresses no interest whatsoever in promoting sustainability. But still, Bizzarri described Gucci’s move as demonstrating “our absolute commitment to making sustainability an intrinsic part of our business.”

The remarkable thing was that only the fur trade challenged Bizzarri to explain how jumping in bed with an animal rights group and dropping fur would make Gucci more sustainable. The media were all over the dropping fur part, but not one journalist questioned the logic. Why was real fur unsustainable? Was fake fur more sustainable? And why was Gucci not dropping leather, exotic skins and feathers too?

So in one fell swoop, Bizzarri framed Gucci as loving both animals and the planet, and he got away with it.

Nothing has changed since either. If you want to know more about Gucci’s stance on animal welfare, the go-to document is titled – wait for it – Gucci Sustainability Principles! This 21-page document on sustainability refers to animal welfare no fewer than 40 times. And there are three whole pages devoted to the “Kering Animal Welfare Standards” (Kering being Gucci’s parent). Why these in-house, self-serving animal welfare standards belong in a document on “sustainability principles” is not explained, but clearly we are supposed to accept that animal welfare is an integral part of sustainability.

Canada Goose: Known for its iconic performance parkas with coyote trim, Canada Goose is now in a tricky spot PR-wise, largely of its own making. For decades, it was a strong advocate of fur as a sustainable natural resource – an industry leader, in fact. Indeed, a page still on its website but that will presumably disappear soon, states: “We remain committed to the functionality and sustainability of real fur.” Then last June it announced that it was dropping fur.

Observers were in no doubt that this was a response to relentless pressure from animal rights groups, but CEO and president Dani Reiss wasn’t about to admit this. Instead he dug himself a hole, saying, “This decision was driven by our commitment to sustainability …”

So the official line is that Canada Goose is dropping fur voluntarily, as part of its ongoing commitment to sustainability, and you can believe that if you want. But the really tricky part is that it can’t actually say fur is unsustainable, because it’s been saying the polar opposite for years. Which leaves us in the odd position of having to turn off our brains and accept that while fur is sustainable, “fur-free” is more sustainable.

And here’s what it looks like in practice:

This new page on the Canada Goose website sports the headline, “We’re going fur-free”, unquestionably an animal rights slogan with no connection to sustainability. But the subhead reads, “Our desire to evolve into a more sustainable brand continues.” No matter what explanation Canada Goose may have for this, it is impossible for a visitor to this webpage not to connect these two ideas. The message, intentional or not, is clear: Canada Goose is going fur-free BECAUSE it is more sustainable.

Mytheresa: And this quote says it all – no further explanation required. This August 26, the Munich-based luxury retailer announced it would not sell fur beyond 2022. Said CEO Michael Kliger, “At Mytheresa, we believe that sustainability is an important part of our future strategy, and this view is clearly shared by our customers, partners and employees. As we already stopped buying exotic skins in spring 2021, it was clear that going fur-free is the natural next step for Mytheresa. We are proud to be making this change and thank the Humane Society of the United States, Four Paws and the Fur Free Alliance for supporting this policy.”

Each company that drops fur will claim slightly different reasons for equating animal welfare with sustainability, but it always boils down to placing them in the best possible light for consumers. And it looks doubly great if you can check two boxes at the same time!

But it’s all nonsense. Animal welfare and sustainability have as much in common with each other as chalk and cheese. It’s also damaging to businesses that really are sustainable, like the fur trade. And that’s why companies that practice this deception should be called out.

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With the slogan #Reconnect - Time to Slow Down, a new campaign by the International Fur Federation urges designers, independent brands, fashion groups as well as consumers to change their consumption habits to help the planet. Sustainable sourcing, producing less, reducing waste, reducing pollution, buying fewer but higher quality garments, and wearing them for longer. This reflects growing criticism of the environmental harm caused by our “fast fashion” culture, while also highlighting fur’s solid credentials as a sustainable natural resource.

SEE ALSO: The sustainability of fur. Truth About Fur.

So what does it take to create a campaign like this? Truth About Fur talked with the man responsible for pulling it all together, IFF's fashion director Jean-Pierre Rouphael.

Truth About Fur: The principal video for this campaign contains a powerful indictment of the fast fashion scene: "Just spend your money, shelf it, wear it, post it, chuck it, REPEAT." As an alternative, you urge us to "Reconnect" with nature, and give it a helping hand by buying fewer garments and wearing them for longer. It's "Time to Slow Down." Support for this sentiment has been growing in recent years, and many in the trade believe fur should be part of this movement. Is it time to put it centre stage?

Jean-Pierre Rouphael: Yes, the conversation has been brewing for a while and keeps aligning closer to the fur industry's values, so the world is definitely ready for this. At IFF, we've been developing this message for the past three years, and this campaign is a continuation. In 2018, we began presenting fur as "natural" and '"kind to the planet", and promoted this heavily via Vogue magazine in eight markets. This has helped influence the media conversation about natural fur versus fake fur, and more broadly has given the fur industry a voice in the sustainable fashion conversation. Our latest campaign builds on this same message, while staying consistent and focused.

TAF: A consistent message makes sense for the fur trade, given that our sustainability credentials are so strong. But while you were developing this campaign, the Covid-19 pandemic struck. Has that changed fashion conversations at all?

Rouphael: It has definitely further prioritised the sustainability agenda and put it at the forefront of those conversations. The pandemic has shown in practice the positives that happen once we slow down - cleaner air, cleaner waters, a nature reboot. People have found a new appreciation for nature, and the industry is taking notice.

The pandemic has also changed the way fashion conversations are taking place. Before Covid, key fashion conferences were typically expensive affairs, for paying guests only. But the pandemic has pushed them to open up, so now anyone can log in remotely from home via Zoom, and be part of what were formerly closed conversations. The pandemic has also given us more free time to listen in, making it easier for us to put our hand on the industry's pulse.

Pulse of the Industry

TAF: And what have you learned? What is the "pulse" of the industry?

Rouphael: We are delighted to see that the fashion industry today is calling for the exact same things the fur industry has been advocating for many years. Quality, long-lasting, handmade, investment pieces made from sustainable materials and not depleting nature's resources. Overall, a promotion of slower fashion.

And this provided the base for our current campaign. We believe that natural fur is exactly the kind of material the fashion industry is calling for right now. For every quality the fashion industry wants to promote, a fur garment checks all the boxes.

Our task was to transform this concept into a campaign that is visual, educational, aspirational, and easily absorbable by end consumers.

"It Takes an Army"

TAF: Your behind-the-scenes photos show that a lot of people were involved in bringing this campaign to life.

Rouphael: All IFF campaigns are big collaborative projects. They start in-house, but once we've defined what we want to say, we invite outside parties to join. And when they say it takes an army, it's true! Almost 50 people were involved in different capacities in this campaign.

After the director and I agreed the visual direction to take and signed the storyboard, we set about choosing the best team, and the list was long! We needed a producer, a director of photography, lighting, retouching, hair and makeup, a casting director, a stylist, a behind-the-scenes photographer and videographer, a location manager, an editor, a copywriter, someone for voiceovers, a catering manager, and assistants all round.

Plus, of course, we needed a cast of models, and it was important to us that they represent a broad mix of ethnicities, as well as different shapes and sizes.

TAF: Didn't Covid-19 have an impact here too? The IFF is based in London. Wasn't there a lockdown?

Rouphael: It's not generally known that we actually shot the campaign in Dubai! The Covid rules were more relaxed there, and the budget was more affordable. Even so, we were all tested Covid-free prior to and post the 14-hour shoot, and had a government medic assigned to us throughout.

Still, Dubai did present some challenges. For one, we shot part of the campaign outdoors, and when the temperature tops 40°C it's not ideal for modelling fur! But the models and the team were ultra-professional, and you really can't tell from the videos and photos how difficult it was.

We also had to find a location with massive panoramic windows with green backdrops so we could shoot indoors but make it look like we were outdoors. And then there was the challenge of getting the fashion into Dubai as Covid was delaying shipments. For this reason, the stylist and I limited the number of brands we used and chose ones which were geographically closer. Still, we ended up with nine brilliant brands, and about 15 looks.

And after the actual shoot, we then had the post-production tasks of editing the videos, selecting the final photographs, and deciding the mood for retouching.

Last but not least, our website developer created a page to host all the new content, and compiled a media kit to deliver to all IFF members around the world.

Measuring Success

TAF: Once a shoot is a wrap, how do you launch a campaign and then measure its success?

Rouphael: The main objective of all our recent campaigns has been to position fur as part of responsible natural fashion, with an emphasis on its sustainability. At the same time, of course, we want to keep fur's image current and fashionable.

Every year, and depending on our budget, we work out a media plan pre-release and identify global print, digital and social media outlets we want to collaborate with, and accordingly make our bookings ready to launch. After the campaign wraps, we get all the analytics from the media with how many people clicked on the ads, how many people came to our website after seeing an ad, how many people we have reached in general, and so on. And then we report these numbers back to IFF's members.

This year, unfortunately, we don't have a budget to promote the campaign through external media (whether print or online), but we'll still be posting and boosting the campaign via our own social media. It's not the optimum way to reach the widest audience possible, but IFF has 55 member associations, and each of those has its own members, so it's amazing how far a campaign can reach when everyone is ready to share.

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How You Can Help ...

Whether you're a member of the trade or just a fur fan with a blog or social media account, you can help spread IFF's message by sharing this campaign.

The simplest way is just to link to IFF's landing page for this campaign, where all the materials are on show and you can understand the story. To share specific materials or to combine them with your own content, they're all available for downloading from a dedicated public Dropbox link. We all have the power to influence the fashion conversation, so please, get sharing!

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To learn more about donating to Truth About Fur, click here.

Once you get past the odd title, you'll hopefully find it fitting for the parable that follows. At first glance, it may seem a strange salad, with not only oranges, but also pineapple, roast beaver and giant sequoias thrown into the mix. But if you bear with me, they all come together to confirm my belief that trapping for food and fur is a very sustainable and environmentally friendly way to live.

This story started a few years ago while I was on a trip to the Northwest Territories of Canada. I was up early one morning having breakfast at the Explorer Hotel in Yellowknife. It was around 7:30 a.m. and outside it was still pitch-black and a very frosty -40° Celsius. My journey had brought me north, in the middle of winter, to provide fur-handling workshops in different communities across the NWT for the next 10 days.

Breakfast for me is a pretty simple affair, porridge with a side order of toast, orange juice and coffee. That morning I remember sitting by myself, wondering how the next few days would unfold, as I waited for Francois to pick me up to drive to our first workshop in Fort Providence. And then it struck me: a piece of pineapple had arrived with my porridge as a garnish.

I enjoy pineapple but the thought occurred to me, what did it take to add a small piece of pineapple only a few hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle? Pineapples grow in the tropics, with the biggest producers being Costa Rica, Brazil and the Philippines, where forests are cleared just to grow them. So for that piece of garnish to reach my plate fresh enough to eat, it had its share of air miles, and certainly a lot more than I had travelled from my home in North Bay.

In fact, the exotic pineapple was once highly prized in Europe and North America, where it symbolised not only affluence but also hospitality. Evidence of this can still be seen today in the pineapple motifs that architects, artisans and craftsmen incorporated into everything from gateposts, weather vanes and door lintels, to furniture and fabrics.

So I remember thinking this was a pretty extravagant luxury in such an extremely harsh reality. That thought planted the seed for this story.

Less Meat, More Orange Juice?

Fast forward to a recent conversation with my daughter Kasey, at the kitchen table one morning. As she enjoyed her fresh orange juice, she casually remarked to me that we should eat less red meat. Kasey is a very serious young lady who cares about the world she lives in, and she had just watched a documentary about the environmental impact of raising cattle for meat.

Deb and I have four kids and they are all responsible young adults making their way in today’s world. And none of them are vegan, so her statement caught me off guard.

One attribute I have tried hard to instill in my children is to question things and not get caught up in flavour-of-the-moment fads. Just because someone is promoting an agenda doesn’t mean that all their arguments can be proven, or are even true. Kasey is in her third year of nursing at the local university and had just completed a project on northern food security. So she is now well-versed in the problems and issues of supplying a balanced diet to remote communities.

In fact, I had shown her an educational poster that pictured a Cree hunter/trapper roasting a fresh beaver over a fire. The poster explains the importance of the beaver to Cree culture, and the value of the meat far outweighs the value of the fur. Beaver meat sustains a trapper's family in one of the harshest environments inhabited by man. In the same way, seals sustain other northern cultures.

Harvesting meat from seals and beaver is far less intrusive on the local environment than flying fresh meat in from the south. A bonus is the skins that are sold into the fur trade to give the local hunters and trappers income to further sustain a lifestyle that has very low impact on their lands.

Flying southern food into the north has also come at a truly staggering cost in terms of human health, with a rise in particular of obesity and diabetes.   

Humbled by Giants

Rewind again a few years and I am in Las Vegas visiting one of the largest outdoor trade shows, the SHOT Show. While on this trip, I booked a return flight with three extra days so I could take a side trip to Northern California to see the giant sequoia trees, something I had always dreamed about doing.

These massive trees have an estimated life span of between 1,800 and 2,700 years. Stop and think about that for a moment. That’s one heck of a long time compared to how long people live - 70 to 80 years on average!

I was extremely fortunate to be able to share this trip with my son Tyler. We rented a van in Vegas and drove the six hours to Visalia, California where we spent the night, and then drove up to the entrance to Sequoia National Park. On our trip we drove through the desert looking at cactus trees, and then into California where mile after mile of orange tree orchards grow. The journey in itself was a huge eye-opener for us.

As luck would have it, this was in January and Sequoia National Park had just been hit with 36 inches of fresh snow, and was now closed for the rest of the season. Undaunted, we were told that if we drove to Kings Canyon National Park, no matter what, we would be able to see a grove of the giant sequoias.

Back down the valley, another hour and a half drive from just about sea level to over 6,000 feet, we reached the entrance gate only to be told we had to have chains on our tires. Back down to the valley to buy a set of chains and we finally accomplished our mission.

Standing beside General Grant is a humbling experience. If you have the chance, I suggest you visit the parks. Just make sure they are not snowed in!

Mile After Mile of Orange Trees

Back to my story. Because we were not able to make it to one park and had to drive over to the next park across the valley floor, what I saw really opened my mind to what it takes to get that fresh glass of orange juice on your breakfast table.

Acres and acres, mile after mile of intensive agriculture, rows upon rows of orange trees, lemon trees and grapefruit trees, and in the valley floor it was harvest time. One sight that is still vivid in my mind was driving past a factory with at least 50 semi-loads of oranges waiting to be processed into juice.

What really struck me was the intensity of the farming. As a trapper I am always looking at the habitat. I can honestly tell you that between each tree in every orchard there was hardly a blade of grass, never mind any other type of vegetation. No room for anything else but fruit trees.

Now don’t read me wrong here, I am not against drinking orange juice or eating the odd grapefruit. What got me thinking was the fact that the average person has no clue what it takes to have fresh food on the table in front of them, for just about any meal they eat. Singling out beef farming as environmentally unfriendly while telling folks that we need to eat more fruits and vegetables is a tad bit hypocritical.

The challenge for all of us is to produce things in a sustainable manner, and look at the whole and not just a single part. We need beef just as we need orange juice.

In this day and age, it is so easy to be against something and jump on a bandwagon and shout out your superiority. I urge you to stop for a minute and gather all the facts, not just what someone spoon-feeds you.  Next time you are reading your news source, whether off the web or an old-fashioned newspaper, keep in mind you are reading someone else’s opinion of the facts and not necessarily the whole story.

The next time you sit down to drink a glass of orange juice or eat your morning grapefruit, keep in mind that they travelled thousands of miles, and were handled by a number of people, before they reached your breakfast table. Don’t be so judgemental of a trapper or hunter harvesting fur and food from a landscape that they didn't actually have to change in any way. They are harvesting in a sustainable manner that has gone on for as long as the giant sequoia trees have been growing.                

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Over the past months, several prominent designer brands have announced that their collections will henceforth be "fur free". Animal activists have been quick to claim this as signalling a fundamental shift in societal values, the emergence of new ethical marketing principles, and the imminent demise of the fur industry. On closer examination, however, the brands’ decisions look more like a big helping of cynical risk management, with a dash of marketing spin.

Let’s take a closer look.

Using Animals for Clothing

The most common reason cited by designers for dropping fur is concern about killing animals. Donatella Versace, for example, was quoted as saying, “I don’t want to kill animals to make fashion. It doesn’t feel right."

This can be a legitimate ethical decision, especially if you are a vegan and don’t eat meat or use any animal products. But most of us do eat meat and wear leather. And most “fur-free” designer brands – including Versace – continue to use leather ... and shearling, which is simply a fancy name for sheep fur.

One justification for this apparent hypocrisy is that leather and shearling can be seen as by-products: “the envelope that dinner came in.” If we are killing cows (or sheep) for meat, the argument goes, we might as well use the leather (or shearling) too.

Underlying this argument, of course, is the belief that eating meat is necessary – a notion that vegans and animal-rights groups like PETA do not accept.

But there are other problems with this justification for shunning most furs while embracing leather and shearling.

First, most designer brands continue to use leather that does not come from food animals, such as python and alligator.

Second, sheep are not the only furbearing animals that are eaten by people. Rabbits come quickly to mind. But beavers, muskrats and other wild furbearers are also used for food by First Nations communities and others across northern Canada. Raccoons and opossums are eaten by trappers and their families in the US. Animals not eaten by people are returned to the bush where they feed other wildlife. And while we don’t eat farmed mink, their carcasses are composted to produce organic fertilisers that restore the fertility of the soil – to grow soybeans for Ingrid Newkirk’s tofu stir-fry. Nothing is wasted.

SEE ALSO: Top 5 tasty furbearers: Muskrat stew and more.

Clearly, the argument that using leather and sheepskin (or shearling) is more ethical than using other furs does not stand close scrutiny.

Sustainability

Another argument for shunning fur was recently proposed by Gucci CEO, Marco Bizzarri; he claimed that being “fur-free” is a way to promote sustainability.

Unfortunately for Mr. Bizzarri, fur is more sustainably produced than most of the alternatives.

The wild-fur trade is highly regulated, nationally and internationally, to ensure that we use only a small part of abundant populations; never endangered species.

Some furbearers are so abundant that they would have to be controlled, even if we didn’t use fur. Over-populated beavers flood homes, roads, fields, and forest habitat. Coyotes are the main predators of lambs and calves, and are now attacking pets and even people in many regions. Raccoons and foxes spread rabies and other dangerous diseases. And the list goes on.

But if we have to cull these animals, surely it is more ethical to use the fur than to throw it away.

Fur farming is also highly sustainable, because farmed mink are fed left-overs from our own food production – the parts of fish, cows and pigs that we don’t eat. Farmed mink are champion recyclers, producing a natural clothing material, mink oil (for protecting leather) and other valuable products (including the best eye-lash fillers ever!) from food industry wastes that would otherwise clog landfills. As explained above, they also provide natural fertilisers to replenish the soil, completing the agricultural nutrient cycle. This is true sustainability.

By contrast, the fake furs and other synthetic materials that animal activists claim have rendered fur unnecessary, are generally made from petroleum – a non-renewable and highly polluting resource.

Perhaps Gucci should take another look at its sustainability policies?

SEE ALSO: Sustainable fur: Global campaign highlights benefits of real fur over plastic fake fur.

Warm, Beautiful, Long-Lasting and Biodegradable

When evaluating ethics and sustainability we must also consider how products are manufactured, used, and eventually disposed of. Fur scores remarkably well on all these criteria.

Fur pelts are “dressed” (preserved) using benign chemicals (e.g., alum salts, which you can put in your bath), because the fur and hair follicles must be protected. This is a much gentler process than leather tanning, where the goal is to burn away the fur hairs. And fur is often used in its natural colours, avoiding the dyes required for most textiles.

Fur garments and accessories are individually crafted by skilled artisans using heritage techniques; they are not mass-produced in sweatshops.

Fur is also a remarkably long-lasting material: a good-quality mink coat will often be worn for 30 years or longer. As styles (or your body mass) change, a well-made fur garment can be taken apart and completely restyled, or handed down to daughters and nieces to be worn vintage. Old fur coats are also recycled to make vests, accessories, or even pillows.

SEE ALSO: 5 great ways to recycle old fur clothing.

Finally, after many decades of use, your old fur can be buried in the garden where it will quickly biodegrade.

Fake furs and other petroleum-based synthetics, by contrast, are not usually worn for many seasons (it’s not called “fast fashion” for nothing!), but – like other plastics – will persist in the environment without biodegrading.

Worse: troubling new research shows that these synthetics shed microfibers every time they are washed – tiny bits of plastic that leach into the waterways and are now being found in the intestinal tracts of oysters and other marine life. If we are concerned about animals and the environment, it is not at all clear that fakes are a wise choice.

The Truth About “Fur Free” Designers

So if it’s not really about ethics or sustainability, what should we make of these designers’ decision to drop fur? According to the Jing Daily, a leading digital publication on luxury consumer trends in China, a review of social media comments showed that many young Chinese luxury consumers believe the whole thing is a marketing ploy.

Stopping the usage of fur can help Gucci decrease their costs and increase their profits. And there is no benefit for consumers as they will not lower the price

Some suggested that the decision reflects Gucci’s down-market strategy: “Gucci has never been known for its fur products, and I don’t think its targeted consumers can afford fur,” said a WeChat user named “Maggie.”

Others thought the “fur free” stance was simply a way to boost profits at the expense of consumers: “Stopping the usage of fur can help Gucci decrease their costs and increase their profits. And there is no benefit for consumers as they will not lower the price,” a Weibo user named “Joey Zhenyi” wrote.

And some suggested that “the brand is just making a gesture,” and that a fur-free policy was a way for the company to “make it look sustainable”.

These young people are remarkably astute. After all, even Greenpeace, the leading environmental activist group, does not campaign against fur, because the modern, well-regulated fur trade is not considered to be an environmental problem.

But in a world where media-savvy animal-rights protest groups attract far more public attention than conservation scientists or biologists, dropping fur has become a quick and easy way to show corporate concern for ethics and sustainability, at virtually no cost.  In fact, these brands will certainly lower their security costs by not having to deal with activist protests.

It is no accident that the newly “fur free” designer labels have all acknowledged on-going “discussions” with Humane Society International or other animal-rights protest groups. These companies may or may not have been convinced about the virtues of the vegan agenda these activists promote, but they were undoubtedly convinced that they would face increasingly costly (and brand-damaging) protest campaigns if they didn’t drop fur. (Can you spell “protection racket?”)

SEE ALSO: Why is Giorgio Armani really quitting fur?

So the real reasons why some designer brands have recently stepped away from (most) fur are probably a lot messier and less noble than they would like us to think.

Unfortunately, by encouraging more use of non-renewable, polluting, and non-biodegradable alternatives, these “fur free” brands are potentially doing more harm than good for animals and nature.

It's time for our May news roundup and we are going to start by talking footwear – vegan footwear to be exact. According to Footwear News, vegan footwear is on the rise due to demand from millennials, and improvements in material quality. No matter how much the quality of plastic shoes improves, they are still made from plastic, which is made from petroleum and never fully biodegrades. There are some organic alternatives making it to market, such as pineapple leather, but we still don't know whether the production processes used to create this material are safe and sustainable.

And sustainability is a very important topic these days, in particular within the fashion industry. Unfortunately designers like Stella McCartney, who consider themselves spokespeople for sustainability, still don't seem to understand the definition of the word. This is an interesting article on whether real or faux fur is better for the planet, this article highlights the problems with faux fur, and this one debates whether feathers are more or less ethical than fur (pictured).

We think feathers are less ethical, because fur is often used as winter clothing, whereas feathers are almost exclusively used as decoration on garments. (Down stuffing is the obvious exception.) If you are going to use animals for clothing, make sure it is for a good reason, right? That said, we'll take feathers as decoration any day over plastic beads.

Vegans Attack British Butcher

Things are getting heated on the animal rights front, especially for a family butcher who has come under attack from vegan animal rights activists in the UK. Activists claim to be compassionate, but we aren't sure how graffiti and death threats towards a small, independent butcher can be considered so.

This article calls out pipeline protesters who align themselves with Greenpeace, without considering the harm that the organisation has done to the Inuit through its anti-sealing campaigns.

A topic that is close to our hearts has made a lot of headlines recently: animal rights vs. animal welfare. The headlines that caught our eye were these: "How consumers confuse animal rights with animal welfare" and "Proposed pet crackdown confused animal welfare with animal rights". Meanwhile this piece explores the concept of conservation and how it has nothing to do with animal rights, and this one explains that consumers care about animal welfare, but they still want to eat meat and wear leather.

Coyotes are back in the headlines for attacking children and being the subject of poorly thought-through "management plans". On the blog, we looked at how the urbanisation of predators, and in particular coyotes (pictured), may change city dwellers' thoughts on trapping. And while we are talking about animals not being welcome, it's worth reading these pieces about nutria populations skyrocketing in California, and Canadian beavers destroying South America.

But let's forget about vegan footwear and criminal activists and end this week's roundup with some links we loved:

This author believes grass-fed beef is probably the most vegan food in the supermarket.

Demand for fur and leather in the US is forecast to reach $13 billion by 2022. Take that, activists!

Conservationist Finn, a yellow Labrador, is helping save penguins by sniffing out rabbits (pictured).

On our blog, From Donald Duck to Zootopia: 70 years of cartoon fur.

Lynx are more conversational than we thought.

The growing media and public interest in sustainability – especially among young people – provides an extraordinary opportunity for the fur trade.

To understand why, think about the vital role that stories play in our lives. Because story-time is much more than those precious minutes we spend with young children at the end of a hectic day. Stories define what it means to be human and are central to our success as a species. “Really?” you ask. Bear with me a moment and we’ll see why – and what this means for the future of fur.

Stories Are Our Social Glue

What’s special about humans is that we work together in large groups. Ants and bees also work in large groups, of course, but only in rigidly programmed patterns of behaviour. Humans are the only animals that cooperate with strangers in ways that can evolve to meet new challenges. And stories are the social glue that allows us to do this. They tell us who we are and what we are trying to achieve.

For much of our history, these stories were expressed in myths or religions. In a more secular age, societal identity and goals are often articulated in new types of stories: Nationalism, Marxism, Liberalism – and, more recently, environmentalism and animal rights.

For much of the 20th century, Western society was driven by a story about science and technology generating prosperity and continual growth. During this period, the story of fur was about warmth, beauty and status. Think glamorous movie stars wrapped in luxurious mink.

The publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, in 1962, sounded the alarm that unchecked growth could threaten our very survival as a species. Carson’s landmark book launched the modern environmental movement and signalled the emergence of a new story: Earth could no longer be seen as a treasure chest to be looted, but rather was a garden to be protected as if our lives depended on it ... because they do!

With the environmental movement came concern that wildlife populations were being depleted. But while biologists know that the destruction of natural habitat is the most serious threat to wildlife, a good story needs clearly identified good guys and bad guys. Hunters – once admired in American frontier mythology – were clearly the bad guys in this new scenario, portrayed as violent and cruel.

Protesters were the good guys, the valiant protectors of Mother Earth. Through the 1960s and '70s, Greenpeace and dozens of other new organizations emerged to protest the commercial hunting of seals, spotted cats, and other charismatic species – garnering international media attention while generating millions of dollars for a lucrative new protest industry.

The good news is that this media attention helped to rally financial and political resources to address some real conservation and animal-welfare concerns. By the early 1970s, seal hunters received training and quotas were introduced to prevent overharvesting. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), in 1975, ensured that leopards and other vulnerable wildlife populations were not threatened by trade. And by the late 1970s, the world’s first science-based humane trap-research program was established, with support from the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies, the Canadian government, and the fur industry.

But these important achievements did not end the protests. As documented in my book Second Nature: The Animal-Rights Controversy (CBC, 1985), the campaigns against seal hunting actually intensified, especially after Greenpeace brought Brigitte Bardot to the ice in 1977. Greenpeace’s Bob Hunter observed that this juxtaposition of sex and violence made the seal hunt an irresistible media story. Protests against fur trapping also gained momentum, at the same time as fur prices and sales were hitting record levels through the 1970s and '80s.

The persistence of anti-fur campaigning after the real conservation and animal welfare issues were addressed is explained, in part, by interests. With hundreds of protest groups – and thousands of professional activists – raking in millions of dollars from well-meaning supporters, there was little incentive to say, “Mission accomplished, let’s go home.”

Equally important, however, was the emergence of a new story: animal rights. With the publication of Australian philosopher Peter Singer’s 1975 book Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals, this new story made a radical break with traditional conservation and animal welfare objectives. It questioned the right of humans to use animals at all. This new story is summarized in PETA’s mission statement: “Animals are not ours to eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.”

This new animal-rights story allowed activists to completely ignore the fur trade’s achievements. Sure we now have research, government regulations, and industry codes of practice. But what does any of this matter if, as Peter Singer, Tom Regan, Bernard Rollin, and other animal rights philosophers argued, it is simply wrong to kill animals for human use?

The use of animals is morally indefensible, these philosophers argued, because we have options. So while the lion must kill to live, humans can thrive as vegetarians. Similarly, there is no justification for using fur (or wool, leather, or other animal products) because we now have synthetic materials to keep us warm. And this is where the story gets interesting. Or rather: the stories. Because another story is now emerging – environmental sustainability – and this new narrative has very different things to say about the ethics of using fur.

Landmark Document: Our Common Future

The concept of sustainable development was coined by the report of the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) – the Brundtland Commission – published in book form as Our Common Future, in 1987. This landmark document recognized that humans are part of nature and depend on natural resources for our survival; we cannot “leave nature alone”, as protesters demanded. The real environmental challenge is to meet “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

In layman’s terms this means living on the “interest” that nature provides, without depleting our environmental “capital”. So, whenever possible, we should use renewable resources (plants, animals) rather than non-renewable resources (petroleum-based synthetics). And we should use these resources sustainably, i.e., no faster than nature can replenish the supply.

Thirty years after the publication of the Brundtland Commission, sustainability is finally gaining traction. Companies of all sorts are rushing to promote their products and services as sustainable. Sustainable lifestyles are the new cool. What many have not yet understood is that sustainable use is very different from the no-use doctrine promoted by anti-hunt protesters and animal rights philosophers. While fur and other animal products are morally indefensible from an animal rights perspective, they are the way to go when looked at through the lens of sustainability.

A flagrant example of this misunderstanding is the recent claim by CEO Marco Bizzarri that Gucci would stop working with fur to demonstrate their “absolute commitment to making sustainability an intrinsic part of our business.”

SEE ALSO: Fur-free Gucci policy contradicts company's "sustainability" claims

SEE ALSO: Sustainability: Why is Gucci so confused?

Sustainability vs Animal Rights

The importance for the fur trade of the impending clash between these two powerful stories – sustainability and animal rights – should not be under-estimated. Most of the time, most people – and societies – drift along without questioning the fuzzy ideas that guide our actions. But when conflicting stories collide, we must stop and think. As sustainability crashes into animal rights, the fur trade will finally have an opportunity to tell its story.

The new International Fur Federation video comparing the sustainability of fur and synthetics is a good example of how this contradiction can be promoted. The website FurIsGreen.com is another.

A recent story in the influential British tabloid, The Sun, demonstrates the power of this clash of ideas to spark a new sort of discussion about fur. The headline stated: “Why Kim’s fake fur is worse for the environment than Kourtney’s real one.”

“For decades we’ve accepted the notion promoted by animal rights campaigners that wearing or buying real fur is ethically and morally bankrupt. ... Yet recently a more complex and nuanced view has emerged, backed by experts in the fur industry, that suggests faux fur could, in fact, be worse for the environment than the real thing,” reported The Sun, citing the International Fur Federation, Fur Commission USA, and other sources.

The problem is that faux fur is made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource. Furthermore, recent research is revealing that clothing made from petrochemical synthetics leaches microfibers of plastic into the environment every time it’s washed. These microfibers do not biodegrade; they are carried into waterways, enter the food chain, and are now being found in the digestive tracts of marine life. Real fur, by contrast, is biodegradable and doesn’t cause these problems. And real fur can also be restyled and recycled, providing decades' more use than synthetic “fast fashion” apparel.

SEE ALSO: The great fur burial: How fur biodegrades after one year

SEE ALSO: 5 great ways to recycle old fur clothing

If sustainability can provoke this sort of serious reflection in a British tabloid newspaper, it can do it anywhere. And sustainability has strong support from the scientific community; animal rights does not. Not least important, young people are particularly interested in sustainability – after all, they will be here longer! All this suggests that the sustainability story is likely to become increasingly influential.

In recent years, animal activists have worked hard to portray fur as a flagrant example of the reckless exploitation of nature: “killing innocent animals for greed and vanity.”

As a more serious understanding of environmental sustainability takes hold, we now have an opportunity to rewrite the story again – and this time fur will finally be recognized as not only warm and beautiful, but also a celebration of the marriage of human creativity with the responsible and sustainable use of nature’s bounty.

The fur story is about to become much more interesting!

***

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It's our first news roundup of 2018 and we want to start off the year asking this question: fake fur vs real fur, which is better? Well, all of us fur lovers know the answer but sadly a lot of people think that fake fur is a good alternative to real fur. Those same people also tend to care about the environment and want to protest pipelines, so it was time to set them straight. That's why the International Fur Federation produced this excellent video, highlighting the dangers of plastic pollution from synthetic fabrics. Fake fur vs real fur - it is obvious that real fur is the better choice for the environment and our planet. (Interested in the history of fake fur? This is worth reading.)

Wild Fur Prices Up

Speaking of the environment, the stewards of the land (otherwise known as trappers) are seeing some increases in auction prices, both at the Thompson Fur Tables and the Fur Harvesters Auction (pictured). But trapping isn't just about making money, it is also about passing down skills from one generation to the next, managing wildlife populations, returning to rural roots, and living off the land.

The trapline may seem very far away from a fur store in Manhattan, but the two are quite connected. Unfortunately for the furriers of NYC, rising retail rents are forcing some independent businesses to close down. If that's not bad enough, thefts of fur coats are also a threat.

But retailers are used to weathering challenging times, and it is not all bad news. British retail trade magazine Drapers surveyed some premium retailers and many of them named fur items as some of their bestsellers over the holidays. Speaking of the Brits, British Vogue had a fur ad in its pages recently, and the activists were not impressed. Maybe the magazine is finally realising that its selective no-fur policy is quite hypocritical when it frequently features exotic skins, sheepskin, and leather.

Fur Trim Works

One of the main criticisms we hear from activists is that fur is often used as trims, and fur trims are not effective in keeping people warm. Finally, we have proof that this is not the case. There is a science behind why real fur hood trims are effective (pictured) and we explored that topic in a recent blog post about fur hood trims. That won't stop the activists trying to shut us down, but we hope that this war will be one of facts. Proof that fur trims are effective only strengthens our industry, and when it comes to fake fur vs real fur, the natural, biodegradable, sustainable option always wins.

Let's end this month's roundup with a few important news stories that caught our attention.

Here are ten organizations that you should never give donations to.

This Greenville fur company makes outfits for Hollywood.

Even if you are a vegetarian, you still have blood on your hands.

Let's talk about trophy hunting and conservation.

Here is what to do if you fall through the ice.

The fur industry is launching a global campaign to promote sustainable fur, and the environmental benefits of using real fur over petroleum-based synthetics, including fake fur.

A hard-hitting video produced by the International Fur Federation is being launched in key markets around the world. In the accompanying press release, Mark Oaten, CEO of the IFF said: “It’s time to call out the fake news about fake fur.” Fake fur is being promoted by animal activist groups as the ethical alternative to real fur.

Sustainable Fur, the campaign video, shows the environmental damage that is being caused by plastic-based fake fur and other synthetics. In North America, the video was prominently promoted on the website of Women’s Wear Daily for a week, before being distributed more widely. In addition to Canada and the US, the video is being promoted in China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Russia, Argentina, Brazil, and throughout Europe.

“Natural fur is the responsible choice when compared with fake fur or other synthetics,” said Mark Oaten.

“The consumer is being fed a constant diet of fake news by activists when it comes to fake fur,” he said. “Meanwhile, scientists are warning that plastics should be eliminated as much as possible from the retail chain.”

The video shows how fake furs and other synthetics are creating major environmental problems because they are made from fossil fuels (non-renewable resources) and are being linked to the release of microfibers into the environment.

“These are plastics that take decades to biodegrade – if they biodegrade at all – and we are now learning that they are entering the food chain and being consumed by marine life, and eventually by us,” said Oaten.

“Real fur is the sustainable alternative. It is natural and provides decades of use for the consumer.”

The video explains that farmed fur animals (primarily mink and fox) are fed left-overs from our own food supply – the parts of fish, pigs and chickens that humans don’t eat. The manure and other wastes from fur farming are composted to provide bio-fuels or natural fertilizers, completing the agricultural nutrient cycle. This is a much more sustainable and ethical alternative than dumping such wastes in landfills.

SEE ALSO: Fur farming: Nothing is wasted, at Truth About Fur

The production of wild fur is strictly regulated to ensure that only part of the naturally-produced surplus from abundant populations are used. This is an excellent example of the sustainable and responsible use of renewable natural resources, a key environmental conservation principle promoted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and other conservation authorities.

Many furbearing species must be culled to protect property, livestock, natural habitat and endangered prey species, or even human health, whether or not we use fur. Overpopulated beavers can flood farmland, forests, roads or homes. Overpopulated raccoons and foxes can promote the spread of rabies or other dangerous diseases. Coyotes are the number-one predator of young calves and lambs on ranches. Coyotes, raccoons and foxes must be controlled to protect vulnerable populations of ground-nesting birds and the eggs of endangered sea turtles.

SEE ALSO: Reasons we trap, at Truth About Fur

The new video campaign is being released as the fashion industry and consumers are beginning to discuss more seriously the environmental impact of our clothing choices. The confusion caused by animal activist campaigns became apparent when Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri recently announced that his company would stop using fur “because of their commitment to sustainability”. As Truth About Fur explained in "Fur-free Gucci policy contradicts company's 'sustainability' claims", the brand's decision to turn away from fur reveals an astonishing misunderstanding of the real meaning of sustainability.

SEE ALSO: Sustainability: Why is Gucci so confused?

The first major campaign to promote the fur trade’s important sustainability credentials was launched by the pioneering website Furisgreen.com. This website has attracted considerable media attention, helping to spread the message. It is expected that the new IFF Sustainable Fur video will also generate media interest in response to press releases that were distributed simultaneously in North America, Europe and Asia.

Help to Share the Message

To help spread the message, retailers, manufacturers and people in every sector of the fur and fashion industries are being encouraged to post the new IFF Sustainable Fur video on their websites and Facebook pages.

“At a time when consumers are becoming more interested in understanding the environmental impact of what we buy and wear, we have an excellent opportunity to explain why fur is a sustainable and responsible choice,” said Teresa Eloy, Managing Director of the Fur Council of Canada.

“This video presents some important facts about the environmental credentials of fur in a succinct and easy-to-understand way,” said Keith Kaplan, of the Fur Information Council of America. “This is an exciting campaign and we are encouraging retailers across the country to post and share this hard-hitting video.”

In the world of fashion, the headlines keep on coming about a confused Gucci following the announcement that it would be dropping fur in the name of "sustainability". Truth About Fur tries to explain how Gucci could so misunderstand the meaning of "sustainability", while Fur Europe has produced a graphic explanation of the sustainability of "Circular Fashion" that hopefully Gucci can comprehend.

Meanwhile, Vogue (UK) magazine ran a doting one-sided interview with confused Gucci's new handler, the Humane Society of the US. The big question now is whether Vogue and Gucci understand HSUS's true agenda, which is not animal welfare but animal rights. One man, Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri, must know what's going on since he used to work for vegan designer (and killer of silkworms) Stella McCartney.

Can we now look forward to Bizzarri, cheered on by HSUS, phasing out leather, shearling, and python farmed by Gucci's parent company, Kering, in Thailand?

Protest Season

November is the time of year when anti-fur protesters kick into high gear, but with the concerns of historical protests (sustainability and animal welfare) having been addressed (at least in the view of the fur trade), Truth About Fur asks whether the current crop are now rebels without a cause.

Meanwhile Stella McCartney's dad, Beatle and animal rightist Paul, turns out to be a Canada Goose fan. Perhaps he didn't get the memo about the stink activists are kicking up outside Canada Goose's new London store, for using coyote trim on its parkas stuffed with goose down. Campaigners have also been targeting Canada Goose's New York store, among them one Jabari Brisport. Who? Brisport is running for office on New York's City Council, and, if elected, will fight to ban fur sales in the city.

Another pop star who doesn't seem confused at all is Pretenders vocalist Chrissie Hynde. The committed vegetarian calls the modern-day animal rights movement "tyrannical", adding: "It’s almost on the verge of polarising people rather than mobilising them, because people have this almost messiah or jihad complex: if you don’t do it the way we want you to, we’ll kill you."

Pest Control

Louisiana is known for its invasive nutria, and now the "swamp rats" will star in an upcoming documentary, Rodents of Unusual Size. "Stopping the nutrias is mission: impossible," says one trapper. "The good Lord couldn't get rid of 'em." (Well, perhaps not impossible. They were successfully eradicated in the UK.)

Toronto, meanwhile, has two pests to deal with. It has more than enough raccoons, but now the city's Wildlife Centre wants to make trapping illegal in the city. Meanwhile, animal rightists (the other pest) are cranking up their efforts to destroy Inuit culture. The Guardian reports that the temperature is being turned up primarily over the eating of seal meat, but animal rightists also want to end the traditional deer hunt.

Animal activist pests in the US, who released 2,000 mink from a farm in Illinois in 2013, have had their sentences upheld and their appeal not to be branded terrorists under the law rejected.

And perennial pest Pamela Anderson had another hissy fit over Naomi Campbell's full-length fox coat, and sent Kim Kardashian a fake fur for Christmas. We're sure Naomi and Kim don't care what Pamela thinks of fur, but it's easy headlines.

Last but definitely not least – and not in any way related to pests – a special mention is in order for Maryland furrier Mano Swartz, who presented a veteran with 25 years of service with a mink coat valued at $8,000. The tradition of taking care of veterans goes back to owner Richard Swartz's great grandfather. Good job, Richard!

In the modern field of conservation, sustainable use is the goal for which resource managers strive. Yet not so long ago, conservation was popularly associated not with sustainability, but with not using resources at all. Perhaps inevitably, along the way some lazy thinkers came to equate sustainable use of a resource with not using it, among them Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri.

When Bizzarri announced recently that Gucci would be dropping fur, he caused much head-scratching. The move was a demonstration of “our absolute commitment to making sustainability an intrinsic part of our business,” he explained. So Gucci will now be replacing real fur – a renewable, biodegradable, natural resource – with non-biodegradable fake fur made from a non-renewable resource, petroleum.

How could Gucci have become so confused about the meaning of "sustainability"? History provides a possible answer.

SEE ALSO: Fur-free Gucci policy contradicts company's "sustainability" claims.

Protection vs. Conservation

Forty years ago, when Marco Bizzarri was growing up, and after a long history of renewable natural resources being mismanaged in much of the world, the word "conservation" was on everyone's lips.

But what did "conservation" mean to most of the public or, in practical terms, on the front lines of the war declared on alleged resource abusers?

The biggest "conservation" issue of the day – the biggest ever in terms of public awareness – was whaling, and groups that formed the Save the Whale Campaign called themselves conservationists. A very few were the real deal, but most were actually perpetrating a deception. They were not interested in sustainable use, or a temporary cessation of whaling to allow stocks to recover. They wanted all whaling stopped forever, regardless of the state of stocks. They were "protectionists", or, to use a term more commonly associated with wilderness protection, "preservationists".

And so the die was cast. In the popular conscience, "conservation" had come to mean not using something, be it whales, seals, ivory, tuna or tropical rain forests. The list just grew as "Save the [enter pet cause here]" campaigns proliferated. Stopping the killing of any animal, correctly termed protection, was now widely perceived by much of the media and the general public as a conservation goal.

From Conservation to Sustainability

Meanwhile, true conservationists were developing increasingly sophisticated management strategies based on a relatively new concept, the "sustainable use of renewable natural resources".

An integral part of sustainable use is that conservation objectives are often best served by giving renewable resources financial value, thereby giving stakeholders an incentive to manage them wisely. For many species of animal, the most effective way of doing this is to allow regulated killing for food or clothing. Captive breeding and even domestication of animals can also help relieve pressure on wild populations. Gucci's parent group, Kering, is actively involved in a programme to conserve pythons by farming them. Ted Turner's bison ranches have played a key role in bringing this animal back from the brink of extinction. And yes, all wild species of furbearers have benefited from the expansion of mink farming.

In short, sustainable use is founded on the consumptive use of resources in a regulated environment. It gives the resources value to stakeholders, while ensuring use of those resources does not exceed their capacity to replenish themselves.

Sustainable use is not about stopping use of a resource.

Gucci Left Behind

Gucci's understanding of "sustainability" appears to be based on an outdated, 1970's view of conservation: that the best way to conserve a resource is to stop using it.

For sure, some furbearer species were hit hard by hunting and trapping before modern regulations were implemented, even in North America. And some, such as South American and African spotted cats, are now – rightly – banned in international trade.

But to imply, as Gucci does, that farmed mink and fox, or abundant wild populations, will somehow benefit by no longer being used for fur shows a naîve and total misunderstanding of how sustainable use works.

Gucci has been left behind as our knowledge of environmental conservation has evolved. We don't need a Save the Mink campaign!

Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri puzzled many when he recently announced that the prestigious design label would go "fur-free" in 2018. The confusion wasn’t about the decision itself – fashion companies change directions all the time – but about Bizzarri’s claim that a fur-free Gucci was meant to demonstrate "our absolute commitment to making sustainability an intrinsic part of our business."

Mr. Bizzarri’s comments are certainly bizarre, and not only because Gucci was founded and is still known as a leather designer.

His comments are bizarre because, whatever your personal opinions about the ethics of using animals, there is no debate about the fact that the modern fur trade is an excellent example of environmental sustainability.

Perhaps someone should explain to this social-responsibility-climbing CEO what environmental sustainability really means.

Following is a short primer on sustainability and fur.

SEE ALSO: Sustainabiity: Why is Gucci so confused?

Sustainability Primer for Fur-Free Gucci

The concept of sustainable development was launched by the Brundtland Report, from the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), published in book form as Our Common Future, in 1987. As quoted on the corporate responsibility and sustainability page of Gucci’s own website, this landmark document proposed that our environmental challenge is to meet "the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

In layman’s terms this means living on the “interest” that nature provides, without depleting our environmental “capital”, i.e., the air, water, and natural ecosystems that we depend upon for our survival. So, whenever possible, we should use renewable resources (plants, animals) rather than non-renewable resources (petroleum-based synthetics). And we should use these renewable resources sustainably, i.e., no faster than nature can replenish the supply.

The sustainable use of renewable natural resources is based on the fact that most species of plants and animals produce more young than their habitat can support to maturity. The ones that don’t make it feed others. And we are part of this natural system. We too can use part of this natural “surplus” for our food, clothing, shelter and other needs.

Let’s see how fur measures up to these sustainability requirements. There are two main types of fur used today: wild-sourced and farm-raised. They have somewhat different implications for sustainability, so we will consider them separately.

Wild-Sourced Furs: Sustainable Use of an Abundant and Renewable Resource

The modern wild-fur trade is an environmental success story. All the fur we use today comes from abundant species, never from endangered species.

Thanks to national and international regulations, fur is an excellent example of the responsible and sustainable use of renewable natural resources.

To ensure that we use only part of the surplus that nature produces (“sustainability”), trapping is strictly regulated in North America by state, provincial and territorial wildlife biologists. Thanks to these regulations, the most important North American furbearers (beaver, muskrat, coyote, fox, raccoon) are as abundant today as they have ever been, or even more abundant. In fact, furbearer populations would have to be controlled in many regions even if we did not use the fur, to prevent the spread of disease or to protect livestock, property, other species or natural habitat.

SEE ALSO: Abundant Furbearers: An Environmental Success Story

And while not strictly a sustainability issue, it is also reassuring to know that North American trappers respect animal welfare. Modern trapping methods have been refined by more than 30 years of scientific research and must comply with the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards (in Canada) and Best Practices (in the US).

Wild furs are, in fact, the ultimate free-range, organic and locally sourced clothing material. By contrast, most synthetic materials are made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource.

Not least important: when you buy wild fur you are providing income to First Nations and other people living in rural and remote regions where alternative employment can be hard to find. Helping people remain on the land – where they can monitor industrial activity and sound the alarm when nature is threatened – is also an important sustainability objective.

Farm-Raised Furs: Completing a Sustainable Agricultural Nutrient Cycle

Globally, most fur is now produced on farms, and fur farms also contribute to environmental sustainability in several important ways.

Mink and fox are the most commonly farmed furbearers. They are carnivores, and are fed left-overs from our own food-production – e.g., the parts of cows, chickens, fish and other food animals that we don’t eat.

Farmed fur animals recycle food wastes into a beautiful, long-lasting and ultimately biodegradable clothing material, while their manure, carcasses and soiled straw bedding are used to produce bio-diesel and organic fertilizers, completing the nutrient cycle.

Fur animals are raised on small, family-run farms. And fur farms can thrive in regions where the soil is too poor or the climate too harsh for most other agriculture.

And, again, while not strictly a sustainability issue, it is reassuring to know that fur farmers provide their animals with excellent nutrition and care. Animal welfare is assured by legislation and various codes of practice, but, above all, because excellent nutrition and care are essential to produce high-quality fur.

Fur-Free Gucci Is Misguided and Hypocritical

As even this brief summary shows, Gucci’s new fur-free policy completely contradicts its CEO’s claims about "our absolute commitment to making sustainability an intrinsic part of our business."

Bizzarri also justified Gucci’s new policy by claiming that fur is “not modern,” a serious charge in the fashion world. But what could be more modern than using materials that are produced responsibly and sustainably, like fur?

Fur-free Gucci smacks of opportunism and hypocrisy because, as mentioned, Gucci has always been known for its leather products. Someone should tell it that leather is produced by scraping the fur from an animal hide.

Some argue that leather is a by-product of animals raised primarily for food. But some fur animals are also eaten, including various types of farmed sheep and rabbits. Beaver, muskrat and other wild furbearers also provide food for aboriginal and other trappers and their families.

Furthermore, not all leather comes from food animals – notably the python and other exotic leathers used extensively by Gucci. In fact, Gucci’s parent group, Kering, recently bought its own python farm in Thailand to ensure good welfare conditions for the reptiles its members use. If Gucci was concerned about the welfare of fur animals, instead of dropping this beautiful and environmentally sustainable material, surely it would have done better to inspect the fur farms that supply it, or learn about how wild fur production is regulated.

Perhaps the good news in this story is that Gucci's bizarre decision about fur provides an opportunity to begin a more serious public discussion about the real meaning of sustainable living. And companies like Gucci can play an important role in this discussion. But first, it would do well to do its research and review its ill-conceived position on fur.

If you want to tell Gucci what you think of its new fur-free policy, you can contact it here (options vary depending on region, just pick one). Include the URL of this blog post, and recommend viewing of Furbearing Animals: A Renewable Natural Resource, by the Fur Council of Canada.

Or you can email Gucci directly at: [email protected]
Or telephone: 1-877-482-2499.

SEE ALSO:

Does Gucci Really Want to Choke the World with Plastic Fur? By Mark Oaten, CEO, International Fur Federation

Gucci: Ethically Minded or Sadly Mistaken? Things that Make You Go Hmmm. FurInsider.com