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This is The Guardian. Hey,

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slows. Full terms at mintmobile.com. This

1:02

article contains strong language. The

1:05

Guardian archive long read. My

1:16

name is Tess McClua and I work

1:18

as the Guardian's commissioning editor on the

1:20

age of extinction, which is a section

1:23

that covers environmental decline and

1:25

the nature crisis. I'm

1:27

the author of Dark Crystals,

1:30

The Brutal Reality Behind a

1:32

Booming Wellness Craz, which

1:35

was published in 2019. What

1:38

drew me into this story initially was

1:40

just that a few people in my

1:42

own social circles had gotten into crystals.

1:45

They were using them to

1:47

purify their homes or charging them up

1:49

under the full moon. I

1:51

got intrigued by the trend. And

1:53

at the same time, I've always

1:55

been interested in supply chains. And

1:58

there seemed to be this vacuum. The information

2:00

about where these crystals were

2:02

actually coming from. It was

2:05

interesting to me that these

2:07

objects were a kind of

2:09

physical manifestation of spirituality or

2:11

of coat true value. Ah,

2:13

on the one hand, that

2:15

these very physical objects created

2:17

by the earth. And

2:19

pulled out by people's says the Calais

2:22

Bar that on the other hand there

2:24

are being sold in kind of divorced

2:26

of all of that physical context. So

2:28

I got interested and. Drawing. Those things

2:30

stay together. The thing I

2:32

want people to keep in mind

2:35

is the broad ness of the

2:37

issues that it's dealing with. This

2:39

particular story is the story of

2:41

the crystal trade and as boom

2:43

and I think there's may a

2:45

temptation to say well he'll and

2:47

crystals are a little silly, but

2:49

the kind of mining that's described

2:51

and thus pace which has cooled

2:53

artisanal mining. More than forty million

2:55

people work as small scale minors

2:58

and another one hundred and fifty

3:00

million rely on the and. Come

3:02

Up provides the a key produces

3:04

of minerals like gold or ten.

3:07

This story focuses on a small

3:09

segment of the mining world but

3:11

there are saw a broader questions

3:13

with you're interested in hill and

3:16

crystals or non about where our

3:18

materials come from and what the

3:20

future looks like for small scale

3:22

mining. Welcome

3:25

to Theguardian long read showcasing the best

3:27

long form journalism covering culture, politics and

3:30

new thinking. So the text version of

3:32

this and all along with go to

3:34

theguardian.com for with such noom we'd. Dark

3:38

crystals, The. Brutal reality

3:40

behind a booming wellness craze.

3:43

By. Test Nuclear. In

3:46

February crystals colonized to say.

3:51

They. spread out over car parks and

3:53

gravel lox motel cool yards and

3:55

freeway footpaths past strip malls and

3:57

burglar bars beneath and some kind

4:00

of on block after block rested

4:02

every kind of stone imaginable. The

4:07

opaque, soapy pastels of Angeline,

4:09

dark, mossy toned epidote, tourmaline

4:12

streaked with red and green. There

4:14

were enormous dining table-sized pieces selling for

4:16

tens of thousands of dollars, lumps of

4:19

rose quartz for $100, crystal

4:21

eggs for $1.50. Crystals

4:26

were stacked upon crystals filling

4:28

plastic trays carved into every

4:31

possible shape, knives, penises, bathtubs,

4:33

angels, birds of paradise. It

4:36

was the months of the Tucson gem

4:38

shows, the series of markets and exhibitions

4:40

that collectively make up the largest crystal

4:42

expo in the world. More

4:45

than 4,000 crystal, mineral and gemstone

4:47

vendors had come to sell their wares. They

4:49

were expecting more than 50,000 customers

4:52

to pass through, from new age

4:54

enthusiasts with thick dreadlocks and

4:56

tie-dye t-shirts, to gallery owners,

4:58

suited businessmen and major wholesalers.

5:02

Deals done here would determine the

5:04

fate of tens of thousands of

5:06

tons of crystals, dispatching them across

5:08

the US and Europe into museums

5:10

and galleries, crystal healing and yoga

5:12

centers, wellness retailers and Etsy stores.

5:15

Five years ago, crystals were not a

5:18

big deal. Now, powered

5:20

by the lucrative combination of

5:22

social media-friendly aesthetics, cosmic spirituality

5:24

and the apparently unstoppable wellness

5:26

juggernaut, they have gone from

5:28

a niche oddity associated with

5:30

patchouli and crushed velvet to

5:32

a global consumer phenomenon. On

5:35

Instagram, hashtags for crystals and healing

5:37

crystals tick into the tens of

5:40

millions. In 2017, the

5:42

New York Times heralded the great

5:44

crystal boom, and in 2018, Hello!

5:46

described them as the year's biggest

5:48

health and wellness trend. Shoulders

5:51

lamps, sex toys, facial massages

5:53

or vaginal eggs hawked by

5:55

Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle empire, goop.

5:58

There is now a crystal for every person. As

6:01

Kim Kardashian was recovering from her robbery at

6:04

gunpoint in 2016, she embraced healing crystals. The

6:08

model Miranda Carr has said that she

6:10

filters all her skincare products through rose

6:12

quartz to give the vibration of self-love.

6:16

In the US, demand for overseas crystals

6:18

and gemstones has doubled over the past

6:20

three years, and quartz imports have doubled

6:22

since 2014. Those

6:24

numbers capture raw stone, but not

6:27

the crystals imported under many other

6:29

categories, jewellery, home goods, decorations. Daniel

6:33

Trincillo, owner of Fine Minerals

6:35

International, a high-end crystal dealership,

6:37

told me that his business makes between $30 million and $40

6:40

million in sales each year. Trincillo

6:44

caters to a growing cohort of

6:46

celebrities, collectors and investment buyers who

6:48

want rare and valuable crystals. The

6:51

most expensive single PC has sold went for

6:53

$6 million, but he knows of some that

6:55

have sold for $10 million. Trincillo

6:58

estimates that high-end dealers now account for about

7:00

$500 million in annual sales. Include

7:04

the lower end, he said, and he were

7:06

talking about a highly profitable, multi-billion dollar industry.

7:11

Believers say crystals conduct ambient

7:13

energy, like miniature phone towers,

7:15

picking up signals and channeling

7:17

them onto the user, thus

7:19

rebalancing malign energies, healing the

7:21

body and mind. First

7:24

popularised in the West in

7:26

the 1970s, crystal healing's recent

7:29

resurgence has coincided with growing

7:31

interest in alternative spirituality and

7:33

healing practices. According

7:35

to Pew Research Centre data, more than

7:37

60% of US adults hold at least

7:39

one new age belief such as placing

7:42

faith in astrology or the power of

7:44

psychics, and 42% think spiritual

7:46

energy can be located in physical

7:48

objects such as crystals. Not

7:51

surprisingly then, scientific criticism of crystal healing

7:54

has done little to dim demand. Last

7:57

year, Paltrow faced and settled a

7:59

misleading attitude. advertising lawsuit for claiming

8:01

that Goop's vaginal egg crystals have

8:03

the power to balance hormones and

8:06

regulate menstrual cycles. But

8:08

still the rise of crystals continues.

8:14

Despite that explosive growth, the way

8:17

the crystal industry operates has largely

8:19

avoided close scrutiny. There

8:23

is little in the way of fair

8:25

trade certification for crystals and none of

8:28

the industry-wide transparency schemes developed for commodities

8:30

such as gold and diamonds. Tracing

8:33

a crystal from the time it is dragged, dusty

8:35

and cracked from the earth to the

8:37

polished moment of final sale requires

8:39

a journey backward down the supply

8:41

chain from shop to exporter to

8:44

middleman to mine and finally

8:46

to the men and women who work below the

8:48

ground on whose labor a billion dollar industry has

8:50

been built. The world is one of the poorest countries

8:52

in the world. But beneath its soil is a well-stocked treasure

8:54

chest. Rose

8:57

quartz and amethyst, tourmaline and citrine, labradorite

9:00

and carnelian. Madagascar

9:03

has them all. Gems and precious metals were the country's

9:06

fastest growing export in 2017, up 170% from 2016 to

9:08

109 million dollars. This island country of 25 million

9:11

people now stands alongside far larger nations such

9:14

as India, Brazil and China as a key producer of

9:16

crystals for the world. And in

9:19

a country where infrastructure, capital and labour

9:21

regulation are all in short supply, it

9:24

is human bodies rather than machinery that pull the crystal.

9:28

The world is one of the poorest countries in the world. The

9:31

world is one of the richest countries in the world. While

9:35

a few large mining companies operate

9:37

in Madagascar, more than 80% of

9:40

crystals are mined artisanally, meaning by

9:42

small groups and families without regulation who are

9:44

paid rock-bottom prices. If

9:46

you want to know where the rose quartz on your shelves comes

9:48

from, Anjoma

9:50

Ramatina is a good place to begin. A

10:01

collection of villages that sits atop some

10:03

of Madagascar's largest Rose Quartz deposits, it

10:06

is a day's drive from the capital city

10:08

of Antananarivo. The

10:10

further you travel from the capital, the greater the

10:12

security risks. Large swathes

10:14

of territory are described as red

10:16

zones, considered unpolicable by state forces.

10:20

Rural villages often face raids from

10:22

armed gangs known as Dahalo, who

10:24

steal cattle, sometimes killing, robbing or

10:26

raping villages. In January the

10:29

week we arrived in Andjamar, Ramatina, three men

10:31

armed with machetes were killed in a clash

10:33

with village police. Do not

10:35

travel or go out at night, people warned.

10:38

Drive in convoy. Stay off the roads

10:40

after 5pm. Most

10:43

homes in Andjamar, Ramatina have no

10:45

electricity, no running water, no phone

10:47

or network connections. Malnutrition

10:50

is common. According to the

10:52

World Bank, around 80% of those

10:54

outside Madagascar's cities live below the $1.90 a

10:56

day poverty line. Health

10:59

researchers found around half of parents in

11:01

Andjamar, Ramatina had lost at least one

11:03

infant child to illness or hunger. As

11:06

we made our way there, the driver noted that

11:08

the road had recently been sealed, a vast

11:11

difference from the deeply potholed gravel near

11:13

a town. This is one of

11:15

the best roads I have seen here. He laughed. Here

11:18

in Madagascar the road only gets made when there is something

11:20

they want to get out. In

11:22

a cool dark room in the town council hall,

11:25

Manijon Rahandranimaro, the deputy mayor of

11:28

Andjamar Ramatina sank into a black

11:30

vinyl couch. Crystal, amethyst,

11:32

rose quartz, he said. Everything

11:35

except sapphires and rubies we mine

11:37

here. He placed

11:39

a few stones on the wooden table in front of him.

11:41

Polished clear quartz and purple

11:44

amethyst. He estimated that

11:46

from a population of about 10,000 people,

11:48

up to a quarter of locals now depended

11:50

on the mines for some income. Between

11:53

two and four men died each year in the

11:55

crystal pits surrounding this village, he said. Only

11:58

two last year, but often it was three. or four.

12:01

Sometimes it's very dangerous but they still

12:03

mine because they want money, he said.

12:06

There's the possibility of landslide. That happens a

12:08

lot here. The soil falls on them and

12:10

they die. Landslides

12:12

are not the only danger for miners. Smashed

12:15

rocks create fine dust and quartz

12:18

particles can penetrate deep into the

12:20

lungs. There they fester, inflaming surrounding

12:22

cells, increasing the risk of lung

12:25

cancer and silicosis. Child

12:27

labour is also widespread. The

12:30

US Department of Labor and the International

12:32

Labour Organization estimate that about 85,000 children

12:34

work in Madagascar's

12:36

mines. A few

12:38

days after our first meeting I returned to the town

12:41

hall. In a ruled exercise book,

12:43

Manijean traced a finger over the town's

12:45

registry of deaths, tapping entries

12:47

on the page. Here and here the

12:49

two men who died in the mines

12:52

last year recorded in neat cursive handwriting.

12:55

And here, Bonois Ravethima Hatrata who had died two

12:57

years earlier when he was looking for quartz with

12:59

a quarry to the east. Manijean

13:01

knew where Bonois's family lived and offered to show

13:04

the way on his motorbike. Bomber

13:06

jacket flapping behind him, Manijean took us to

13:08

the next village. Sitting

13:11

in a small shop that sold

13:13

fritters and dried fish was Jean-Gregoire

13:15

Ranjean Arisoa. He looked

13:17

tired. Yes, his older

13:19

brother had died, he said. What

13:21

killed him was digging for stones about 15

13:24

meters deep. He went into a tunnel

13:26

and it collapsed from above and he was buried.

13:29

Someone called for help. Help! Zathema

13:31

Hatrata is buried down here.

13:34

That's when I went with his children to dig him up, he

13:36

said. Bonois

13:39

was about 55 when

13:41

he died, said his widow, Josephine

13:43

Rassonjina, a tiny woman less than

13:45

five feet tall with hair neatly

13:47

divided into braids. She

13:49

brought out a photograph of him. His

13:52

features had faded. Josephine gestured at her

13:54

two granddaughters about six or seven years

13:56

old, sitting on the steps. Since

13:59

my husband... died, they stopped

14:01

going to school. Since my

14:03

husband died I got really tired. She

14:06

raised her fingers to her temple. I

14:08

am really tired, emotionally and

14:10

physically, because I have to work

14:12

the field to feed my children.

14:20

Common crystals, such as quartz, conform

14:22

almost anywhere around the world when

14:25

water and steam carry mineral particles

14:27

into fractures in the earth. Drawn

14:30

together by the mutual attraction of

14:32

their electrical charges, their molecules stack

14:34

in orderly sequences, forming defined planes

14:37

and repeating facets that can create

14:39

the pleasing shapes, geodes, prisons that

14:41

they're sought for. In

14:43

the mineral rich earth of central Madagascar, villagers

14:46

often find quartz and citrine deposits by

14:48

chance when they are revealed by landslide

14:51

or washed down to nearby riverbeds. The

14:54

mines dug to meet growing demand are

14:56

often improvised, operated off the books and

14:58

without permits. One of

15:01

these makeshift mines lies about an

15:03

18-mile hike from Anjumma Ramatina's nearest

15:05

road. Rakotondra Solo, the

15:07

man who villagers call the mine owner, found

15:09

the site about 20 years ago and continues

15:12

to work there along with his family to

15:14

this day. One

15:16

morning he agreed to show me the mine. Rakotondra

15:19

Solo is tall and very thin.

15:22

His worn flannel shirt was buttoned

15:24

over a t-shirt with the face

15:26

of Andri Rajolina, Madagascar's newly elected

15:28

president. The t-shirts were everywhere

15:30

after being thrown from trucks and doled

15:32

out at political rallies across the country

15:35

during the 2018 election campaign. The

15:38

red dust of the landscape had worked its

15:40

way into the weave of his clothing until

15:42

every garment was infused with terracotta orange. As

15:46

we made our way along the red dirt

15:48

track to the mine, the sun was directly

15:50

above shimmeringly hot. Here

15:52

and there was a sparkle among the

15:54

scrubby grass, hunks of pink crystal scattered

15:56

at the path's edge. Walking

15:59

behind Rakotondra His wife

16:01

pointed, the stones are beautiful, she

16:03

said quietly, but the work is

16:05

very hard. Then the grass

16:07

of the track ended sharply, and the deep red

16:09

cavern of the mine fell away in front of

16:11

us. Keep away from

16:13

the edge, said Rakotun Drasolo, gesturing to

16:15

where the ground was cracked and unstable.

16:19

The pits dropped fifteen metres deep,

16:21

narrowing as it deepened. On

16:24

the sheer face of rock were cross-hatched

16:26

marks of spades and pickaxes. At the

16:28

far side of the cavern, a huge

16:30

pile of rose-coloured stones caught the sunlight.

16:33

At the bottom, a passage disappeared, curving

16:35

out of the light. Be

16:38

careful, he said, as we trolled over the

16:40

edge of the crater, the rocks are sharp.

16:44

Rose quartz cracked underfoot, jagged, gleaming,

16:46

a little translucent, shining like the

16:48

flesh of a fresh filleted tuna.

16:52

Later, he lifted a worn trouser leg to show

16:54

the scars he had acquired from a lifetime of

16:56

mining, on the right leg where

16:58

falling stones crushed his shin, and on the

17:01

left where a sharp edge split the skin,

17:03

requiring six stitches. At

17:05

other times this crater would have been busy with the sound

17:07

of men at work, his sons and nephews, who

17:10

would come to dig and then split the cost of stone

17:12

they sold. But today it

17:14

was silent except for Rakotun Drasolo's

17:16

careful footsteps. They had stopped

17:18

work, rains had been heavy, and they

17:20

worried that the water made the cavern

17:22

less stable. I was

17:24

afraid and was afraid for my children because of

17:26

this soil. It can collapse on them. I

17:29

asked them to stop working here, Rakotun

17:31

Drasolo said. He threw in a handful

17:34

of gravel and it tumbled to the bottom. Of

17:36

his ten children, seven worked with him in

17:38

the mine. The boys started

17:40

at the age of about fourteen. When

17:43

they find a thick seam of quartz, they

17:45

smash it out of the rock, then chain

17:47

the pieces together. Some blocks

17:49

are small, but others are a hundred kilograms

17:51

or even two hundred kilograms. The

17:54

miners dragged the boulders out of the

17:56

hole, sometimes five people hauling together, up

17:58

onto the grass embankment and... toward

18:00

the hill where lorries come to load them. I

18:03

asked where the crystals went from there. To

18:05

the ports, Rakotunja Solos shrugged.

18:08

He did not know. Somewhere, overseas.

18:12

A long time ago a client brought him

18:14

a rose orb, cut and polished into a

18:16

sphere, to show him what eventually became of

18:18

some of the stones he had mined. But

18:21

the buyers mostly say little about what the

18:23

crystals are used for, or where they end

18:25

up. They pay him and

18:27

leave. About 800 ariary, or 23 cents a kilo,

18:29

he said. 17

18:33

cents for lower quality. It

18:35

is not much when the money is split between the men at

18:37

work. 800 ariary

18:39

buys a cup of rice at the village market. As

18:45

Rakotunja Solos stepped away from the crater,

18:48

a low hiss sounded behind him. We

18:53

turn back to see a thin layer of

18:55

red gravel loosen from the wall slides down

18:57

into the hole. Thanks

19:03

for listening to the Guardian Long Read. The

19:06

story continues right after this. Hey,

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20:05

Welcome back to the Guardian Long Read.

20:10

While some mines are large open

20:12

pits, others are

20:14

claustrophobically small, networks

20:17

of tunnels piercing the earth. About

20:20

120 miles east of Anjoma Ramatina lies

20:22

Ibti, a small village surrounded by tourmaline

20:24

mines where you have to dig deep

20:27

to find stones. The

20:31

deeper you go, the more difficult it

20:33

is to breathe, said Itali Milyama, a

20:35

shopkeeper at the centre of the village,

20:37

scooping coffee into enamel cups. Once

20:40

you see a stone, you follow it to

20:42

find the other stones, said one of his

20:44

friends. We dig, dig, dig, we call it

20:47

the stone way, the way of stones. The

20:50

mines at Ibti spread out like an

20:52

ochre moonscape. On the morning I

20:54

visited, about 20 people were above

20:56

ground sifting through the soil. Among

20:59

them, a local miner named Jean

21:01

Baptiste Racon d'Ravello and his son

21:03

stood barefoot, turning a large

21:05

improvised pulley. Their backs

21:08

strained against the weight. A

21:10

moment later up came a large yellow jerrycan

21:13

full of red earth from below. Jean

21:15

Baptiste's son carried it to his mother and young

21:17

siblings and dumped it on a pile of dirt

21:19

that they sifted with their fingers. The

21:22

day was hot, the sun nearing its

21:24

peak. It's extremely hard

21:27

work, Jean Baptiste said. It

21:29

can't be done by a few people, it has to

21:31

be done by many. At

21:33

his feet was a hole about a metre

21:35

in diameter with sheer sides like a well.

21:39

Shining my torch down the hole, I couldn't see to

21:41

the bottom. Every so often

21:43

a faint shout echoed up from the darkness and

21:45

Jean Baptiste and his son put their backs again

21:48

to pulling up the bucket. His

21:50

other sons were working down there, Jean

21:52

Baptiste told me, digging for tourmaline. He

21:55

shrugged. Go down if you like. Near

21:58

the top of the hole it was popped up. possible to make

22:00

out mosquitoes catching the light. As

22:03

they turned the pulley and I descended,

22:05

gripping the rope with both hands, the

22:07

light retreated. The passage

22:10

down was tight, the damp earth

22:12

walls grazing my back, elbows and

22:14

knees. Reaching

22:16

the bottom, the air felt thin and it was a

22:18

little harder to draw a full breath. On

22:21

one side there was a small horizontal

22:23

tunnel with room only to crawl. I

22:26

crouched and shouted into the darkness. Salama!

22:30

Two young voices called back and

22:32

deep in the tunnel a pair of dim headlamps

22:34

turned to face me. Two

22:36

boys blinked into the torchlight. The

22:39

smallest wore a yellow cloth baseball cap

22:41

and his eyes were wide, mouth slightly

22:43

open with surprise. Their names

22:46

were Roland and Taveeta, Jean-Baptiste's

22:48

sons, who he says are about

22:50

fourteen and seventeen. They started

22:52

working down here two years

22:54

ago, spending hours digging underground,

22:56

crouching in the dark, backs

22:58

curved, calves aching. Deep

23:01

underground we looked mutely at each other for

23:03

a moment. Ducking into

23:05

the crawl space, I was conscious of

23:07

the weight of dirt resting above us,

23:10

about nineteen tons of soil and

23:12

rock suspended only by its own natural

23:14

cohesion. Roland and

23:16

Taveeta squatted, jamming a spade

23:18

or crowbar into the soil to dislodge it and

23:21

pack it into the jerrycan. When

23:23

it was full they would crawl back toward the

23:25

light, shoving the heavy dirt bucket ahead of them

23:27

to be dragged up top. When

23:29

it's too long they can have difficulty breathing

23:31

so they come out, Jean-Baptiste said back at

23:34

the top of the well. Above

23:36

ground the boy's mother, Odette, sat

23:38

working alongside two generations of children,

23:41

the youngest of fat-cheeked six-month-old girl.

23:47

Odette sifted through the dirt, searching

23:49

for a rock shaped differently from

23:51

the rest, to small, wine-red and

23:53

green crystal, tourmaline. Sometimes

23:57

we go months without finding any, she said.

24:00

They had found just one today, about the size

24:02

of a knuckle. Odette held

24:04

it out to me, streaked with red dust in the

24:06

middle of her palm. At

24:08

that moment it was worth just a few cents. But

24:14

in the months to come it would slide

24:16

along the global supply chain, its value multiplying

24:18

with each stage of the journey. For

24:24

the crystals mined in Anjumma Ramatina, the

24:26

path out of the country is through

24:28

a company called Madagascar Specimens, which exports

24:31

about 65 tonnes of carved

24:33

crystals a year. At its

24:35

premises, a converted house in the outer

24:37

suburbs of Atananarivo, boxes of crystals

24:39

were stacked against the wall. A

24:42

row of shining SUVs were parked outside the

24:44

house. Samples stood on

24:46

the disused fireplace, carved

24:48

angels, pyramids, geodes, wands.

24:51

The rose quartz had been trucked in

24:54

rough from Anjumma Ramatina by a local

24:56

middleman, the village's former mayor, who bought

24:58

large quantities from Rakotondrassolo's mine. The

25:01

owner of Madagascar Specimens, Leaver Mark

25:03

Rachtriya Harisowa, a tall man in

25:06

dark jeans, wire-rimmed glasses and a

25:08

navy t-shirt, gestured to the stack

25:10

of boxes to his left packed for shipping. This,

25:13

for example, is going to Canada, this

25:15

to Netherlands, this to the United

25:18

States, he said. He

25:20

lifted the lid on a box of quartz

25:22

massage wands. These are very

25:24

popular. In another box of

25:26

rose quartz hearts, some of our best sellers,

25:29

he said. Crystals are

25:31

the most popular stones now. Many

25:33

customers are looking for it because, I'm

25:35

not sure of the English, the medicine with

25:37

crystals is very popular now. Like

25:40

therapy, the belief crystals have healing

25:42

power, you know. It's very,

25:44

how do you say, trendy. The

25:47

gem and mineral expo in Tucson was a

25:49

key point in Leaver Mark's year. That

25:52

is where you're looking for customers, he said. You

25:55

see all customers from around the

25:57

world, Chinese, Japanese, New Zealand, Australian.

26:00

It is the biggest market in the world. We

26:02

go there to exhibit, to sell, but

26:05

most important is to find customers there."

26:08

Between the buyers in the US and

26:10

the mines in Madagascar was a gulf

26:12

of experience which, sitting in the courtyard

26:14

of Levermark's small factory, he found hard

26:16

to express. It's like

26:18

two galaxies, he said, grinning and shaking

26:21

his head. It's a big difference. If

26:23

I say to people at the mine what Tucson

26:25

is like, they will never understand. Even

26:28

if I say to the Tucson people to come

26:30

here, they will never understand. It's very different worlds.

26:33

He acknowledged the poor conditions at the mines he

26:35

bought from. You were

26:37

shocked, but I was shocked too. When

26:40

you see in the rough stones weighing like 50 kilos,

26:43

60 kilos, they drag it four,

26:45

five kilometers, two or three per

26:47

day, and earning only one dollar.

26:50

You know, it's... he

26:52

paused. Sometimes you can't

26:54

imagine how they can do this. Madagascar

26:57

specimens export some crystals rough,

27:00

but its workshop in Antananarivo also

27:02

works the stones, cutting them into

27:04

shapes, grinding and polishing the faces.

27:07

From Levermark's perspective, refining the stone in

27:09

Madagascar means creating steady jobs and keeping

27:11

more of the value of the crystals

27:14

in the country. With stone

27:16

that was exported rough and then carved in

27:18

China or the US, almost none of the

27:20

profits stayed in Madagascar. Maybe

27:22

they, shops in the US, don't explain it

27:24

to their customers. It's business

27:26

for them. They want money. They

27:29

will never say, I buy this for one dollar

27:31

and I sell it to you for a thousand

27:33

dollars. He laughed, but that's the reality. The

27:36

plunder of Madagascar's resources for profit is

27:38

nothing new. In the 18th

27:40

and 19th centuries, the country was a

27:42

source of slaves, bought by Europeans, and

27:45

sent to work in brutal conditions, often

27:47

on sugar plantations on the islands of

27:49

Mauritius, Réunion and Rodriguez. When

27:52

the French colonised Madagascar in 1895,

27:54

they outlawed slavery, but ushered in

27:56

a new era of forced labour

27:58

and extraction, with ten of thousands

28:00

of tons of rosewood and millions of

28:02

francs worth of gold shipped offshore each

28:04

year. More than

28:07

a century later, the country's riches

28:09

still rarely benefit the Malagasy people,

28:11

says Zohandri Amara, a sociologist and

28:13

human rights analyst. Gold,

28:15

cobalt, sapphires, crystals. She

28:18

sees them all as part of the

28:20

same old story, resources siphoned out of

28:22

the country for the benefit of foreign

28:24

companies. There has to be

28:26

some more systematic way of controlling and

28:29

regulating the market for all types of

28:31

minerals coming from here, she says. It

28:33

is totally unjust. Mining

28:37

also threatens Madagascar's rainforest.

28:40

When new mining sites are discovered,

28:42

sometimes thousands of men migrate to

28:44

mine, encroaching on protected environmental areas

28:47

and threatening the survival of endangered

28:49

species. Embracing

28:51

mining on a larger scale

28:53

is intrinsically, fundamentally unsustainable and

28:56

destructive, Andrea Amaro says. You

28:59

can never pretend that you will restore the

29:01

environment to its initial state. The

29:06

month after we spoke in Madagascar, Levermark

29:08

and a shipping container full of his

29:11

stones landed in Arizona, bound for the

29:13

Tucson shows. I

29:15

met him in a hotel lobby, one of three retail

29:17

spots he had in the city. Business

29:20

was good, he said. Buyers from all over

29:22

the world had come. The

29:24

stalls around him showcased

29:26

towering display pieces, rose

29:28

quartz boulders, massive amethyst

29:30

geodes. They had been cleaned, polished

29:33

and set on display, but he still looked at

29:35

them and thought of their origins. All

29:37

these big pieces, imagine how they must

29:39

dig it, how difficult it must be,

29:41

he said. Imagine how it

29:43

starts. While the crystal

29:45

business is booming and largely among consumers

29:48

who tend to be concerned with environmental

29:50

impact, fair trade and good intentions, there

29:53

is little fine of the kind of regulation

29:55

that might improve conditions for those who mine

29:57

them. Julius Schoen.

30:00

co-founder of the crystal drink bottle

30:02

company, Glasser, tagline luxury spiritual, told

30:04

me that ethical sourcing is the

30:06

number one priority for her company.

30:09

Sheeran was speaking on the phone from her

30:12

office in New Orleans, where she told me

30:14

she was surrounded by crystals that had been

30:16

unboxed and laid out, waiting to be blessed

30:18

by staff who would burn sage smudge sticks

30:20

and pray to cleanse them before use. Glasser

30:23

sells water bottles and metal straws

30:25

embedded with rose quartz, amethyst and

30:27

other crystals, which are supposed to

30:29

transform ordinary water into a crystal

30:31

elixir where the water takes on

30:33

the healing properties of the crystal.

30:36

The bottles were touted by Vanity Fair

30:38

as 2018's status symbol

30:41

and are sold by bohemian-themed fashion

30:43

retailer Three People as well as

30:45

Goop. Sheeran said sales

30:47

of the bottles, which retailed for $60 to

30:49

$100, had increased exponentially since

30:52

they started the business and

30:54

demand often outstripped supply. But

30:56

even with the booming market, she said, the company

30:58

didn't yet have a budget to track their crystals

31:00

to their source at the mines. Instead,

31:03

Glasser depended on Chinese middlemen

31:05

to select crystals, including those

31:07

from Madagascar. Sheeran

31:09

told me that Glasser's suppliers know that we do

31:12

not want to be having our money go towards

31:14

a mine that's using child labour. They

31:16

know all these things. At present,

31:18

she said, they considered transparency a

31:20

high priority and hoped to develop

31:22

relationships with individual mines by 2020,

31:26

but could offer no concrete reassurances about

31:28

the current conditions of their miners. In

31:30

an industry that has not been so regulated

31:33

and maybe hasn't had so many eyeballs on

31:35

it, there are obviously practices that most people

31:37

who are purchasing crystals would not want to

31:40

know about, Sheeran acknowledged. You

31:42

know, at the end of the day, it's like

31:44

our intentions are… she paused. I

31:46

think we are clear what our intentions

31:48

are. The challenge of

31:51

sourcing crystals ethically is one faced by

31:53

the industry as a whole. Glasser,

31:56

Goop or any given Etsy vendor are

31:58

no more culpable than the next crystal

32:00

dealer. Every retailer I

32:02

spoke to raised the question of price. Would

32:05

crystal consumers really be willing to

32:07

pay more to guarantee safer, child

32:09

labour-free mines or a fair wage

32:11

for miners? Schoen compared it to

32:13

the organic food movement. If enough

32:16

people wanted assurance of their product's provenance,

32:18

the supply systems would develop. At

32:20

Tucson, in the Marquis for Crystal vendor,

32:23

the village silversmith, I asked

32:25

owner John Bajuris, tall, tanned and broad-shouldered

32:27

with an enormous shark-tooth around his neck,

32:30

where the responsibility lay if crystals were

32:32

coming from mines where people, many of

32:35

them children, were risking their lives for

32:37

meagre pay. It is

32:39

all about the customers, Bajuris said. It's

32:42

a complete conundrum. I get somebody

32:44

with dreadlocks and a peace hippie attitude,

32:46

and you try to sell them a

32:48

piece of labradorite from Madagascar for twelve

32:50

dollars, and they're like, I'll give you

32:52

six dollars, dude. That's where the fucking problem

32:54

is. If they were like, it's twelve dollars?

32:56

Well, how about I give you twenty dollars?

32:58

Then you could kick eight dollars back down

33:01

the line, sure. That's the

33:03

problem. The problem is your end consumer,

33:05

not anybody else in the pipeline. The

33:07

end consumer is the person who sets

33:09

the price. Bajuris visited

33:11

Madagascar often, but rarely made it out

33:13

to the mines, opting instead to deal

33:15

with middlemen in the cities. But

33:18

he knew the villages of Andromar Ramatina

33:20

and Ibiti. Yeah, all

33:22

our rose quartz comes from that area. All the

33:24

tourmaline comes from there, he said. And

33:27

if some of the conditions are truly

33:29

awful, awful is relative, remember, he shot

33:31

back. The volume of his voice

33:33

rose slightly, but he was still smiling. Your

33:36

job looks horrible to me. I feel

33:38

for you. I'm glad that you're willing to do it

33:40

because we need people like you to do it. But

33:42

I ain't fucking doing it. No way. I

33:44

would rather die in a mine any day, no

33:46

doubt. Holy shit. No,

33:49

not happening. Spell check.

33:51

You're out of your fucking mind. Meanwhile,

33:55

the four point two trillion dollars wellness

33:57

industry rolls on bolstered by

33:59

profits from This

36:09

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