There are many things you can do to support African wildlife following the death of Cecil the lion. Buying a $2,400 gold-plated smartphone probably shouldn't be one of them.
As spotted by Wired this weekend, U.K. company Goldgenie now offers a "limited edition" gold-plated HTC One phone for about $2,470. A whopping 10 percent of each sale goes to the Friends of Hwange Trust, an organization devoted to conserving wildlife in Zimbabwe.
A spokeswoman for Goldgenie told The Huffington Post on Monday that the gold phone was not developed in cooperation with HTC. She also confirmed that the 24-karat gold plating -- emblazoned with the words "For Cecil and his Kingdom" -- is grafted to the phone and not removable.
"We wanted to do something to help those working towards wildlife conservation where Cecil lived and we simply applied a charitable initiative to what we do, which is gold embellishing phones and lifestyle accessories," the spokeswoman said.
The intentions are noble -- and certainly, giving some money to an organization working to support wildlife in Africa is better than nothing, even if you're paying an exorbitant fee for a gaudy piece of technology. But there's a major problem here: Smartphones are emblematic of so many recent woes in Africa that you might as well wear a mink coat to protest the treatment of chickens in factory farms.
Cecil the lion.
Cecil the lion died after he was lured off a nature reserve and shot by an American dentist on a hunting trip.
You may not realize it, but electronics like smartphones require specific materials that come from very few places on Earth. They're broadly categorized as "conflict minerals" because of the bloodshed they've spurred in areas like the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which contains a provision urging the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to require conflict mineral disclosures from corporations. Long story short, companies like Apple must now audit where their materials come from. The hope is that doing so will help eliminate the use of conflict minerals.
Annie Callaway, senior advocacy associate for Enough, a human rights organization, told HuffPost that Dodd-Frank has helped, but some problems remain.
"As a result of Dodd-Frank and related reforms, there have been significant improvements in the transparency of corporate supply chains and a major reduction in the number of 3T (tin, tungsten and tantalum) conflict mines in eastern Congo," Callaway said.
"However, there is still much to be done. Conflict gold is still a significant problem, as it is easily smuggled and is highly valuable in small quantities," she continued.
Callaway also described how switching to a "conflict-free economy" has impacted Congolese communities. While some sources suggest the effects are negative overall, Callaway said it's a nuanced issue -- one that would benefit from an implementation of Dodd-Frank that takes miners' livelihoods into account.
"The original conflict minerals legislation included resources for livelihood programs for mining communities, but unfortunately those provisions were taken out of the final law," Callaway said. In her view, expanding Dodd-Frank to put more focus on miners' livelihoods would help.
That said, other reports indicate different problems with Dodd-Frank. Even Apple, a company with substantial resources, doesn't fully know where all of its materials come from, for example.
All this to say: If you think you're helping Africa by buying a golden smartphone for thousands of dollars, perhaps you should reconsider.
Clarification: This article has been updated with additional information from Enough to more accurately describe its position on Dodd-Frank. The article previously suggested that the group's position was similar to that of a 2014 article in the Washington Post.
