8
street roots
June 24, 2011
RE UTE RS /DAV ID LEWIS
BY ROSETTE ROYALE
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R ITER
nvironmentalist Saleem Ali thinks
there’s one surefire way to lift people
out of poverty: encourage trade that
balances need with greed
Corporations are evil. They ruin the
environment, take advantage of the world’s
poor and accrue
profits that benefit a
few, already wealthy
souls.
In certain circles,
such statemehts are
gospel. There’s no use
debating their veracity
because, well, the
proof is everywhere.
But maybe, just
maybe, what’s taken
as proof is really
unexamined bias. At
least, Saleem Ali
thinks so.
Ali, director of the
Institute for
Environmental
Diplomacy and
Security and a
professor at the
Saleem Ali
University of
Vermont, believes that
many tree-hugging enviros bark up the wrong
tree by vilifying corporations. Instead, he
stresses that companies, properly monitored
by governments, will increase the livelihoods
of the poor. And for many poor people,
prosperity is linked to wealthy societies’
desire for natural resources. He spells it all
out in “Treasures of the Earth: Need, Greed
and a Sustainable Future” (Yale University
Press, $20).
Of course, putting this pro-business
message out to people, one that heralds the
connection between the wants of one group
and the betterment of another, has garnered
Ali fans and detractors. Forbes magazine
proclaimed him “the alchemist” and National
Geographic labeled him an “emerging
explorer.” Some greens, according to Ali,
haven’t been so supportive of his views.
In a recent phone conversation, Ali, a self-
proclaimed realist, talked about how
diamonds can save the poor, why the world
would be better off if greens worked with
E
corporations and how our current and
impending environmental crises can create
unity in a world too often divided along lines
of us and them.
R osette Royale: Your book’s called
“Treasures o f the Earth: Need, Greed and a
Sustainable Future.” So how would you define a
treasure o f the earth?
S a leem Ali: Anything that we are
harnessing from the planet, and it could be
used positively or negatively. Even if we’re
talking about food, we are dependent on the
elements to nourish food. Hence we have
minerals written on our cereal boxes. So
when I talk about treasures, I’m essentially
going back to the elements of the earth.
All plant life and animal life need minerals,
so (the elements) have a very specific needs-
based connection to our sustenance. But then
they also provide for more luxury oriented
wants, so to speak. The whole jewelry
industry is about minerals, whether you’re
talking about gold or diamonds or other kinds
of precious gemstones. So there’s this huge
spectrum between what we need and what we
want, and the book tries to grapple with
these and how understanding our relationship
to minerals can make us a more efficient and
equitable society.
R. R.: So let’s touch upon the topic o f greed.
Can you name a mineral that we both need and
want?
S. A.: Well, carbon was the fundamental
element for organic molecules and it’s also, in
its purest form, the diamond. A diamond is
something we want; we don’t need it
physically. But the same element forms many
other kinds of compounds, like coal, which we
do need, given our current constraints of
energy. So carbon’s an important one in that
regard.
But I also have a more nuanced approach.
If you think about a diamond, which is a
luxury good, if you look at its utility, we
clearly don’t need it. But the people who
produce the diamond, if you look at it from a
production point of view, they do need
diamonds for generating livelihood. For
example, Botswana, which has risen out of
poverty, has become a showcase of
democracy and development in Africa. And
the only reason that has happened really is
because it’s the world’s largest diamond
producer. It didn’t have many resources by
which it could be lifted out of poverty before
that. Their major industry before was cattle
ranching. That wasn’t environmentally good
nor was it particularly lucrative. So, diamonds
were in essence something which provided
for their needs, even though the sale of
diamonds and their consumption in the
developed world itself may be considered a
w ant So if it wasn’t for some starry-eyed
teenager wanting to buy a diamond ring, you
wouldn’t have that demand. Need and greed
are interrelated and that’s the part that’s
often missed by the mainstream
environmental discourse.
R. R.: Recently, there’s been a term called
blood diamonds. I t seems there’s this ethical
movement for people not to buy diamonds
because they come from a war-tom and ravaged
country.
S. A.: Yes and I’m very sensitive to th a t
I’ve travelled to Congo, to many of these
areas where you have conflict diamonds. And
clearly, we need to have regulation of any
industry.
But you don’t want to throw the baby out
with the bathwater. Just because you’ve got
conflict diamonds doesn’t mean that all cut-
diamond consumption is bad. I gave you the
example of Botswana, or we could talk about
the Arctic region of Canada, where diamond
mining is providing livelihoods for Inuit
communities to stay in their traditional
homeland to reduce the amount of migration
to cities. All those things need to be
considered when you buy diamonds, so I
think it’s very important that consumers
become more aware where they’re buying
diamonds from. So in that regard the process
in certification is a very valuable process that
allows consumers to track diamonds. And it’s
absolutely incumbent upon developing
countries to ensure that their supplies are
monitored and managed.
But I think the hunkering down of
environmentalists, where they’re basically
saying, “Well, we should not consume luxury
goods,” is a little bit disingenuous. When
we’re dealing with structural levels of
See DIAMONDS page 9
A villager holds
some diamonds
dug out from a
mine outside the
village o f Sam
Ouandja, northeast
o f the Central
African Republic.