Supported projects

MERERANI - In the mines near Mererani in the north of Tanzania, miners search feverishly for tanzanite. Everyone hopes one day to find a beautiful large specimen of the unique gemstone and to become rich in one fell swoop. In recent years the government has taken extra measures to keep as much of the tanzanite yield as possible in their own country.

PHNOM PENH - The jeans or denim jacket that you bought recently have likely been made in Cambodia. A strike of thousands of textile workers was violently suppressed there a year ago. Journalist Ate Hoekstra and photographer Kristof Vadino show that not much has changed since then.

MANILA - The Philippines is one of the 17 megadiversity countries on the planet. In terms of biocultural diversity and natural resources, it is an Ali Baba's cave. But not for much longer. Its biocultural heritage is being destroyed on a massive scale by mining, biofuel plantations and illegal deforestation. Sand mining, dredging and land reclamation are also contributing to this destruction.

GHENT - In the region of the port of Ghent, the emission of CO2 and harmful particulate matter is related to the failure of European and international climate standards.

NAIROBI - The idea that electronic waste is carelessly dumped in the remote corners of the globalised world is outdated. Everyone wants to get the materials out of our old computers and televisions, including the EU. Arthur Debruyne and Sam Sermon investigated illegal export, e-waste recycling in Kenya and Belgium, and the built-in obsolescence that gives electro-appliances an ever shorter lifespan.

ZURICH - Is there economic life besides capitalist companies and public enterprises? If you take a broader view of the world, you will see how financial capitalism is failing most of all, plunging the global economy into one crisis after another. You will also see how many governments are failing to find the answer to numerous problems and are fleeing their responsibility for a well-functioning economy.

CHARLEROI - While Belgium is dying, Pascal Verbeken walks back to the era of Great Expectations. He makes a hike along the Grand Central Belge, the nineteenth-century private railway line that linked Wallonia with Flanders. An artery of triumphant Belgium, about 200 kilometres long.

BRUSSELS/TARGIA - Asbestos is the perfect model of a substance mined, industrially exploited and widely marketed as a miracle material without proper research into its long-term effects on health. Indeed, it went on being promoted long after it was recognised as dangerous.

GHENT - Our region has everything it needs to be a world leader in green chemistry. At least, that is what the government and industry unanimously claim. We put this to the test in North Sea Port, the binational port that says it is fully committed to a circular future. Will the chemical giants along the Ghent-Terneuzen canal lead us to the promised land of clean and circular chemistry?