LVMH and Hermès buy crocodile farms in Australia in Australia

LVMH, Hermès...Our luxury giants have multiplied the purchasing of crocodile farms in Australia, for 10 years, so much so that more than 50% of them are now held by the two tricolor firms.Coolibah is a place forbidden, accessible only by the air in the rainy season, in an isolated region in northern Australia.A farm bought by the luxury giant LVMH to raise crocodiles of a renowned race for the smallness of the scales of his skin: ideal for handbags.From November to March, we therefore arrive in Coolibah, in the northern territory, by helicopter.The farm nestles between escarpments and multiple rivers, surrounded by nature.LVMH bought it in 2017.

During this period, the activity is the most intense, because it is laying in crocodiles.About 4.000 eggs are taken from the surrounding nature each year, before being transported to Coolibah, where they are placed in an incubator, until hatching.Inside a room where the temperature is kept constantly around 33 degrees, boxes filled with eggs are stored on shelves separated by a small central aisle."They are very sensitive to temperature.At the start of the incubation phase, it makes it possible to determine sex.What interests us is to get males because they grow faster, "said Ben Hindle, who directs the two crocodile farms that LVMH has in Australia owns.

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By inspecting the boxes, he sees some babies who have just hatched.They emit a little repetitive cry."It is to call their brothers to get out of their eggs, that they all hatch at the same time," he said.They are then transferred to covers, to a large building as a barn: large closed trays partially filled with water, where crocodile babies are grouped into ranges of 30 to 40 for about nine months.They are fed six times a week, with minced kangaroo meat.Ben Hindle leans to catch one and inspect his belly.

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"The mark of the umbilical cord has healed, its scales are starting to train," he observes, satisfies.It is this part of the body that is used in leather goods.In this area, there is nothing better than the Australian sea crocodile."The skin of their belly contains no bones and it consists of very small scales, a very feminine pattern, particularly popular for making handbags," explains Ben Hindle.They spend the third and last year of their lives in individual wire mesh enclosures, in a large field, to prevent their skin from being bitten or scratched, before being slaughtered - with an electric gun, like oxen.

Their skin is then sent to Singapore, in a tannery bought by LVMH in 2011, which supplies all the brands of the leather group.Despite a constant increase in demand, the use of exotic leathers by the luxury industry is more and more criticized.Thursday, three activists from the PETA association, dressed only in a bikini and a crocodile mask, demonstrated in front of the Hermès store in the center of Sydney."For each bag, shoe or belt made with crocodile leather, a very intelligent and sensitive animal is placed in captivity, subject to a horrible life and multiple sufferings before being killed", denounces Aleesha Jones by removing his mask.

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Major brands, like Chanel, have given up using exotic leathers.Not LVMH, which for its part, "leaves our brands free to use these materials, and our customers to buy them," explains Alexandre Capelli, Deputy Environment Director of the group."From there, we do everything to set up the best possible practices".Grahame Webb, which presides over the Crocodile group within the International Union for the Protection of Nature, has helped the LVMH group to define them.He defends the commercial exploitation of crocodiles, a compromise according to him necessary to preserve the species, which came close to extinction in the 1960s.

"You will never make the crocodiles sympathetic to those who live their proximity.On the other hand, if you give them an economic value, then these same people will be ready to bear them ".Of which act in the northern territory, where a study quantified in 2017 the economic benefits generated by the exploitation of crocodiles, in breeding and tourism, at 67 million euros per year.Globally, luxury leather goods suffered in 2020, due to the pandemic.But the sector should quickly bounce back.This undoubtedly explains the acquisition in November by Hermès of a Melons farm, called to eventually become the largest breeding of crocodiles in the country.More than 50.000 reptiles will be high there.