Blood and Earth: Modern Slavery, Ecocide, and the Secret to Saving the World

"BLOOD AND EARTH is a gripping account of the deadly link between slavery and environmental destruction. Kevin Bales is a social scientist, human rights activist, and journalist -- and he's also one of the world's leading experts on modern slavery. In his work he began to notice the connection between environmental decline and slavery: the two almost always went hand-in-hand, whether in the hellish gold mines of Ghana or the miraculously beautiful mangrove forests of Bangladesh. But why? He set off to find the answer on a fascinating and moving journey that took him into the lives of modern day slaves and along a supply chain that leads directly to the cell phones in our pockets. He found solutions that redeemed both the lives of the slaves in the world's most threatened places and the environments they live in. This is a clear-eyed, inspiring, and profoundly hopeful book that brings us dramatic stories from the world's environmental and human rights hotspots and offers solutions to our most pressing crises"--
The co-founder of the largest abolitionist organization in the world identifies key links between environmental destruction and human trafficking while outlining new approaches to solving both crises.
The co-founder of the largest abolitionist organization in the world identifies key links between environmental destruction and human trafficking while outlining new approaches to solving both crises. By the author of Disposable People.
For readers of such crusading works of nonfiction as Katherine Boo’s Beyond the Beautiful Forevers and Tracy Kidder’sMountains Beyond Mountains comes a powerful and captivating examination of two entwined global crises: environmental destruction and human trafficking—and an inspiring, bold plan for how we can solve them. A leading expert on modern-day slavery, Kevin Bales has traveled to some of the world’s most dangerous places documenting and battling human trafficking. In the course of his reporting, Bales began to notice a pattern emerging: Where slavery existed, so did massive, unchecked environmental destruction. But why? Bales set off to find the answer in a fascinating and moving journey that took him into the lives of modern-day slaves and along a supply chain that leads directly to the cellphones in our pockets. What he discovered is that even as it destroys individuals, families, and communities, new forms of slavery that proliferate in the world’s lawless zones also pose a grave threat to the environment. Simply put, modern-day slavery is destroying the planet. The product of seven years of travel and research, Blood and Earth brings us dramatic stories from the world’s most beautiful and tragic places, the environmental and human-rights hotspots where this crisis is concentrated. But it also tells the stories of some of the most common products we all consume—from computers to shrimp to jewelry—whose origins are found in these same places. Blood and Earth calls on us to recognize the grievous harm we have done to one another, put an end to it, and recommit to repairing the world. This is a clear-eyed and inspiring book that suggests how we can begin the work of healing humanity and the planet we share.