Swire Shipping announces ban on the carriage of donkey skins

Swire Shipping is the first shipping company to publicly declare such a ban and follows a similar decision by Emirates airline last year, which banned donkey skins on all of its flights.

At least 5.9 million donkeys are cruelly taken and slaughtered each year so their skin can be used to make ejiao, a Traditional Chinese Medicine. The ejiao industry is responsible for the collapse of China’s own donkey population – once the biggest in the world – and now traders are looking to import donkey skins from countries around the world.

Cargo ships, which carry around 90 per cent of the world’s goods, are often used to smuggle donkey skins across borders, alongside illegal animal products such as pangolin scales, elephant ivory, or shark fins.

Donkey skins are often mislabelled under broad customs codes that also cover cow hides, making them harder to detect during inspections. Smuggling donkey skins also threatens biosecurity and increases the risk of zoonotic disease outbreak.

By imposing bans on the transportation of donkey skins and implementing stricter policies and protocols to detect them, Swire Shipping and Emirates have shown that action can be taken to interrupt trade routes and help bring an end to the large-scale killing of donkeys for their skin.

A group of donkeys cramped together in a holding pen at a slaughterhouse.

Worker in Kenya slaughterhouse carrying dried donkey skin. — Donkey skins being laid out in the sun to dry at a slaughterhouse in Kenya.

Marianne Steele, CEO of The Donkey Sanctuary, praised the move: “The cruel and unsustainable donkey skin trade is a gateway for illegal wildlife trafficking and puts global health at risk. We applaud Swire Shipping’s action and urge others in the cargo industry to step up and help stop this trade.”

Swire Shipping’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Susana Germino, added: “We are proud to support the work of The Donkey Sanctuary by including a ban on donkey skins in our updated Responsible Cargo Carriage Policy. This decision underscores our unwavering commitment to sustainability and ensures that our operations do not contribute to any trade that is illegal or threatens the survival of donkeys, whether wild or domesticated.”

The Donkey Sanctuary commends Swire Shipping and Emirates for showing leadership on this issue and hopes it will inspire others in the international cargo industry to follow their example.