FINANCIAL TIMES reports— “Why leather from fishskin and fungi fibres are becoming the height of fashion”

ORIGINALLY REPORTED BY JESSICA RAWNSLEY FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES Read Full Article

“As an avid scuba diver, Aarav Chavda was dismayed to witness the slow demise of the coral reef off the coast near his hometown in Florida. Over the years, the reef’s kaleidoscopic colours vanished along with the ocean dwellers it sustained —buffeted by rising global temperatures, warmer oceans and heat stress/pollution – until one day the entire reef was desolate, resembling a ghostly underwater grave. But there was one creature that thrived: the lionfish.

First imported for aquariums, lionfish are an invasive species that decimate reef ecosystems in the Caribbean, Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. With no natural predators, each fish can gobble up to 70,000 native reef fish over its lifetime – devouring 79 percent of young marine life within five weeks of entering a habitat. Since 1960, invasive species (not just lion fish) have cost $ 1.2 trillion of damage in US waters alone and eaten into the livelihoods of thousands of local fishermen.

In 2020, Chavda and some other scuba divers devised an ingenious solution: turning lionfish skin into the world’s first invasive leather product that actively restores ecosystems. INVERSA, the company he founded, employs local hunters to catch the otherwise unprofitable fish, providing alternative livelihoods and dampening some demand for overfished species.

Partnering with fashion brands – 40 to date – Inversa turns the skin into exotic leather handbags, shoes, belts and footballs. The business now works across six countries and has expanded to incorporate two more invasive species: Burmese pythons from the Florida Everglades and carp from the Mississippi River. Some 50,000 invasive animals have been removed so far. “The game is 500,000, five million, 50 million,” Chavda says.

Invasives are responsible for about 60 per cent of species extinctions around the planet today,” he continues. “The biggest challenge was that there wasn’t the scale needed to tackle this problem. And we see biodiversity bounce back in such a spectacular way: biomass regeneration is about 50 to 70 percent when there’s active management on a coral reef.”

It’s exciting that fashion consumers can buy products that actively benefit the planet,” Chavda says. “It isn’t just a race to less bad or net neutral: we’re firmly regenerative and beneficial for the ecosystem.”

Read full article via the Financial Times