Feature: Leather technologist aims to bring Zimbabwe's leather industry back to former glory
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E-mail Xinhua, May 16, 2022
by Tafara Mugwara
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Stepping into Sibusiso Sibanda's office, one immediately notices his intimate connection with wildlife - zebra skin upholstered wingback chairs, a cowhide rug, and a decorated animal skull hung on the wall.
In the workshop next to the office block, imposing tannery machines run at full throttle - churning out tonnes of hides that feed into Zimbabwe's leather sector value chains.
Sibanda, the Managing Director of Boustead Leather, a tannery and leather products manufacturer based in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second-largest city, is playing his part in bringing the southern African country's leather industry back to its former glory.
By keeping it old school, Sibanda - a leather technologist and taxidermist - is seeking to keep the spirit associated with Zimbabwe's leather alive.
"The way our leather is done is different from what today's world is doing. We maintained the old way of doing leather which makes our leather highly sought after, because for every piece that we make, it becomes handmade, so it gives it value and even lasts longer," Sibanda told Xinhua.
Zimbabwean leather is world-renowned for its organic, authentic and durable qualities.
The southern African country has a competitive advantage on the leather value chain given its viable livestock base and its diverse wildlife resources.
However, the country had lost its grip on the leather market over the past two decades in the face of economic challenges.
Through Sibanda's efforts, the local leather industry is being given a new lease of life to ensure that Bulawayo retains its dominant position in the leather industry.
Located in the center of the Matabeleland region which does cattle ranching, Boustead Leather is aiming to increase production to support Zimbabwe's booming beef industry and leather value chain.
About two years since starting operations, Boustead Leather now has a production line that encompasses the purchase of hides, tanning, designing of leather products and training.
"We have agreed that the only way for us to revive our city, our country, our economy, is to get into production, so this is why we even go out there and look for very old artisans to come and impart the knowledge that they have to the young boys and girls so that we start producing.
"We should start to be in control of our production so that our money revolves amongst us, we don't want our money to keep on going outside the country to buy things that we can manufacture here," said Sibanda.
Through a partnership with the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Authority, the company also exports leather made from game.
They mainly focus on elephant, buffalo and ostrich hides. The hides come from the national parks and are usually a result of natural deaths and road kills.
"We have crocodile farms, we are not getting them from the wild...we are getting them from the national parks, and everything is controlled through CITES," he said.
CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) is an international agreement between governments whose aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten the survival of the species.
"These are animals that you hardly find outside Africa and we have them in abundance in Zimbabwe, so when these animals die, we preserve them by making designer trophies, or we make some other goods out of their hides and it gives us good revenue," Sibanda added.
He said environmental sustainability is at the center of the company's operations to protect Zimbabwe's wildlife resources.
Zimbabwe has a long history of leather production dating back to the Stone Age era. By the 1990s, the country had one of the most sophisticated leather industries in the region. This was eventually affected by economic sanctions imposed on the country by the West in the early 2000s.
Estimates indicate that leather shoe production has plummeted to 1.5 million pairs annually from a peak of 17 million in the 1990s. Enditem
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