Issue

Trade

Behind almost every product we buy and the GDP numbers we worry over, there is a story whose trail crosses the globe. Every physical product starts as raw material somewhere, from the gold in our jewelry to the shrimp at our favorite restaurants and the minerals within our mobile phones and laptops.

The rapid industrialization of countries like India, China, and Brazil and a voracious consumer culture in Europe, the United States and Japan mean ever greater demand for these raw materials—and ever greater pressures on the individuals, communities, and environments that bear the cost of providing them.

These local costs too often remain hidden. They are obscured by companies and governments that put a premium on production and exports. They are little understood by consumers, whose concept of "price" and "value" does not include damage done to people and places far away.

Trade is an effort to make those connections plain, to show the true costs of producing the commodities that have become essential to our lifestyles but that we mostly take for granted. These reports touch on goods and challenges across the globe that share a common theme: the implications of a vision of endless prosperity set against the reality of a finite planet.

Trade

The Toxic Metal in the Shadow of the Gold Industry

Two commodities that are frequently taken over illegally are gold and mercury, and in the Guiana Shield region, one does not go without the other. Mercury has grave impacts on human health and the environment, but efforts so far to curtail its use in the gold industry have only pushed supply chains underground. 

Dairyland in Distress

Dairy farms—Wisconsin's economic engines—have been decimated in recent years due to decreased demand, lack of workers, and slumping milk prices.

Nobody Listened

Native American women become targets of the oil industry in the United States.

Burning Forest for the Trees

In the name of renewable energy, the British government is subsidizing the clear-cutting of the American Southeast.

Meet the Journalist: Rachel Nuwer

Rachel is a Brooklyn-based freelance science journalist who is writing a book about the illegal wildlife trade. She traveled to Malawi and South Africa to report on the war on poaching.

Debating Australian Mines in Africa

The Common Core-aligned land rights lesson plan and education resources attached introduce students to the impact of mining by Australian companies in Africa. Students explore a multimedia...

Waste disposal

What is the most efficient way to reduce the amount of waste? Can we ever reach the point of waste elimination?

Rana Plaza

Use the six resources attached to learn about the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh, which is considered one of the worst accidents ever experienced by garment workers.

Human Rights Reporting

Students will critically examine the legal, professional and moral obligations of journalists as witnesses to all kinds of human rights violations.

Beyond War: The Rohingya: A Genocide On Our Watch?

At a Beyond War conference panel, journalists and Pulitzer Center grantees discuss their reporting on the Rohingya crisis while the former Ambassador to Burma explained attempts by the United States to curb the persecution.