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Fonderie 47's "Inversion Principle" watch includes a plate made from the steel of a destroyed assault weapon. Each sale funds the destruction of 1,000 assault weapons in Africa. Courtesy of Fonderie 47 hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Fonderie 47

Fonderie 47's "Inversion Principle" watch includes a plate made from the steel of a destroyed assault weapon. Each sale funds the destruction of 1,000 assault weapons in Africa.

Courtesy of Fonderie 47

Here's a gift idea that's hard to top: a $195,000 watch, made partly from recycled components of assault rifles seized in Africa. Not only is it an attention-getting item, but it's also a chance to do good. Each purchase funds the destruction of 1,000 weapons in central Africa.

The man behind the watch is Peter Thum, a U.S. entrepreneur with the heart of a humanitarian. Thirteen years ago, the former McKinsey and Co. consultant created a premium bottled water brand, Ethos Water, that directed a percentage of profits toward clean water and sanitation projects in developing countries. Starbucks bought Ethos in 2005.

A few years later, as Thum was touring safe water projects in Kenya and Tanzania, he encountered a different danger: the proliferation of small weapons, especially AK-47 assault rifles, also known as Kalashnikovs. It's estimated that Africa is home to some 20 million small arms. The AK-47 is so popular that it's emblazoned on Mozambique's flag.

Disturbed by what he saw, Thum embarked on a new venture in 2009, co-founding a company called Fonderie 47 to make fine jewelry and watches. The timepieces, rings, earrings and other bijoux, created by designers including French-American jeweler James de Givenchy and Swiss watchmaker David Candaux, are partly made from the recycled components of AK-47s seized as part of disarmament efforts in Central Africa. Each sale then helps support efforts to rid Africa of guns by the Mines Advisory Group, which co-won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997.

Thum spoke with Goats and Soda about his swords-to-ploughshares efforts.

What was the genesis of the idea for Fonderie 47?

I traveled in Kenya and Tanzania in 2008. It was the first time I'd come across kids and young men armed with rifles. They ranged in age from preteens to their early 20s.

It was unnerving to me. It led me to think of the question of arms across Africa and the implications for international development efforts: What can we do that's interesting and different to bring attention to the proliferation of assault weapons in Africa?

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Weapons seized by authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo awaited destruction at a workshop in the city of Bukavu in 2009. Moises Saman/Courtesy of Fonderie 47 hide caption

itoggle caption Moises Saman/Courtesy of Fonderie 47

Weapons seized by authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo awaited destruction at a workshop in the city of Bukavu in 2009.

Moises Saman/Courtesy of Fonderie 47

Why watches and jewelry?

The crux of the idea is to take an AK-47 and transform it into something compelling and beautiful — and completely opposite of an AK-47 — and then use it to fund the destruction and removal of guns. We have provided funding for the destruction of those guns through our venture.

Getting a new AK-47 is very expensive for a local person. These weapons are like rusty old cockroaches. It is such a robust device. If they get old and are destroyed, we help create a vacuum.

The goal is to make an issue of the international arms trade, and the aftermath and what happens to people. This will help bring attention to it and not leave it as an issue only discussed by policy people.

So this is a very tangible action. It's not a peace conference. Let's take a device that makes people dead and get rid of it.

The Two-Way

Letter: Kalashnikov Suffered Remorse Over Rifle He Invented

Tell me why the Congo region is particularly important for gun destruction.

Author Interviews

The AK-47: 'The Gun' That Changed The Battlefield

All around [Africa's] Great Lakes, it's a region that's been embroiled in conflict for the last 20 years. It's a horrible human disaster. More than 5 million people have been murdered, and I don't think people understand what these numbers actually mean. We'll definitely continue working in that part of the world where the worst conflict in recent history is taking place.

What happens after a piece of your jewelry is purchased?

When someone buys something, we assign a specific number of guns to a piece. A pair of earrings might destroy 100 guns and we send you the serial numbers that relate.

How many weapons have been destroyed as a result of Fonderie 47 watch and jewelry purchases?

More than 40,000 weapons have been destroyed via the Mines Advisory Group. More than 35,000 have been destroyed in the DRC and more than 5,000 in Burundi. Based on our research, these guns have a $100 market value locally and about $500 internationally. Using conservative estimates for the local and international trade prices of these weapons, that's about $4 million locally and $20 million in internationally traded guns.

Are the watches and jewelry made from certain parts of the guns?

We use metal from all of the different parts.

The AK-47 design was created by the Soviet Union for World War II but the gun was not available till 1947. That's where the number 47 comes from. The design was given to other Allied countries, there was no intellectual property protection. Twenty countries produce the AK-47 with different materials, of different quality. We use metal from different guns, from different countries — Eastern Europe, the Mideast, Russia, China. The gun barrel tends to be the best steel — very consistent, very hard. It's where the bullet is delivered. It's very high quality.

Steel is very difficult to work with. Gold, silver and platinum are malleable. Steel is very hard and brittle. We had to invent processes to use it.

How did you originally get the gun parts to the watch and jewelry designers?

In my luggage. The black rollie bag. Eight guns' worth. We got them destroyed at a blacksmith outside Goma. After that, it was [technically] garbage and we were exporting chunks of steel.

It must have been heavy.

Very. I just checked our bags to the U.S. We had talked to Customs and explained what we were bringing back.

Do you wear a piece of jewelry or a watch made from one of the destroyed AK-47s?

I have a ring, a signet ring on my right-hand ring finger. It's 18-carat gold with a piece of an AK-47 plate in the center. There is bezel around the top with gold clamped down over the plate. A blacksmith fashioned it, and then it was blackened. The body of the ring is microplanished with tiny indentations so it looks multifaceted. Inside the ring is the serial number of the gun it was made from. I just really liked it.

Aside from encountering the boys and young men with guns in Kenya, have you had any personal experience of gun violence in your own life?

In college I had a really good friend. She was shot. She was a wonderful person. It's not necessarily directly connected to my reason for doing this. But I look back on that experience and I think maybe my experience is exemplary of what many people in the U.S. go through.

And you actually have started a new business, similar to Fonderie 47, to address the gun situation in the U.S., right?

Yes, it's called Liberty United. We had a June 2013 launch. Illegal gun material is released from evidence and we buy it back. We've created jewelry from $35 to $1,600. We take 20 to 25 percent of the profits and put it back into nonprofits to reduce gun violence and make young people safer.

But we're not funding gun destruction here. The idea in Africa is to create an economic gap. It doesn't work in the U.S. Guns are cheap here, like cellphones. That's why there are 300 million guns here.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

weapons

AK-47

Africa

Urban agriculture is clearly taking off around the world — in backyards, on rooftops and on local farms.

But just how much of the world's cropland can we really call urban? That's been a big mystery.

Now, a study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters has an answer: Somewhere around 1.1 billion acres is being cultivated for food in or within about 12 miles (20 kilometers) of cities. Most of that land is on the periphery of cities, but 16.6 percent of these urban farms are in open spaces within the municipal core.

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The Salt

Rooftop Farming Is Getting Off The Ground

The researchers — who hail from the International Water Management Institute, the University of California-Berkeley and Stanford University — looked at a combination of remote-sensing analyses of satellite imagery and agricultural census, population and socioeconomic data. They say theirs is the first global assessment of urban croplands and the water they consume.

Anne Thebo, an environmental engineer at the University of California-Berkeley and the study's lead author, says that the research revealed that a surprisingly large number of urban farms rely on irrigation, especially in South Asia. Since many cities in this region are growing rapidly and already face challenges accessing enough water, these farms end up competing with the city for the scarce resource.

This map shows where irrigation on urban farm land is greatest by country. The study revealed that a surprisingly large number of urban farms rely on irrigation, especially in South Asia. Courtesy of Anne Thebo hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Anne Thebo

The study "has a lot of interesting implications for urban water management," Thebo tells The Salt.

But even though the analysis found that some 80 percent of the world's urban farms (at least the ones big enough to be visible by satellite) are in the developing world, governments in those countries are not always supportive of them.

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A view of agricultural land around the periphery of Cali, Colombia Google Earth hide caption

itoggle caption Google Earth

A view of agricultural land around the periphery of Cali, Colombia

Google Earth

As Pay Drechsel, a scientist at the International Water Management Institute and co-author on the paper, notes, what's hip and green in rich nations is viewed as backwards in poorer ones — "an inconvenient vestige of rural life that stands in the way of modernization."

"That's an attitude that needs to change," Drechsel said in a statement.

As we reported in 2012, a survey from the Food and Agriculture Organization found that urban farms in Africa are at risk of being lost to housing and industry.

Thebo notes that her research may be an underestimate of urban farms also because she and the other researchers only considered farmed areas in and around cities with at least 50,000 residents, even though many countries define areas with smaller populations as "urban."

urban farming

At 72, after 30 years in the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell has finally realized his life's ambition.

He never wanted to be president — he just wanted to be Senate majority leader. And when he ascends to that perch come January, McConnell will finally have a chance to shape the chamber he says he deeply loves. McConnell declared his first priority will be to make what's been called a paralyzed Senate function again. But the politician who became the face of obstruction over the past four years will have to persuade Democrats to cooperate.

Channeling Henry Clay

When you walk into McConnell's front office at the Capitol, the first thing you see on your right is a looming portrait of Henry Clay, the legendary Kentucky senator. Take a few more steps, and you'll notice that same portrait reflected in the mirror above the fireplace on your left — so his face is on either side of you.

Clay surrounds the visitor standing in the center of McConnell's space.

Two years ago on Kentucky Educational Television, McConnell paid tribute to the famed orator who helped broker pre-Civil War deals with states that had diametrically opposed interests.

"Clay obviously has a special place in the lives of many Kentuckians, and particularly somebody like me who ended up being in the Senate and looks to a person like Clay for guidance," McConnell said in the interview. "The way Clay operated — a marvelous combination of compromise and principle — is a lesson for the ages if you're a public official."

It's a lesson McConnell says he wants to bring back to the Senate.

"The Senate in the last few years basically doesn't do anything. We don't even vote," McConnell said in a press conference one day after the election.

Many blame McConnell for that. He did, after all, once declare that his top priority was to make Barack Obama a one-term president. Now, he says he wants to see the Senate become the chamber of deliberative debate. He wants to see it pass bills, not resort to procedural gamesmanship.

"This is the last rung of his political aspirations, and perhaps he has an incentive to make the place work — to make senators proud of it again," said Sarah Binder of the Brookings Institution.

But Democrats who suffered under McConnell's tactics over the past six years might be a little suspicious of Mitch McConnell, the sudden institutionalist.

"It really takes two cooperative parties to make the Senate work in this sort of fluid, collegial way. And we don't have two cooperative parties," Binder said.

Finding Areas Where Everyone Can Win

As the story often goes, Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr. grew up as a fighter. He fought off polio when he was 2, fought off bullies later in childhood, and became a fierce lover of sports. His former Chief of Staff Hunter Bates said that's why McConnell was drawn to politics.

"Because politics was a game where there were winners and losers and you kept score. And every play mattered," Bates said.

But friends say the relentless competitor always kept the bigger picture in mind, never wasting energy on minor skirmishes.

"He often says that the most important word in the English language is 'focus.' And I've never been able to see anyone maintain that focus no matter what's going on," said another former chief of staff, Billy Piper.

As Piper remembers it, McConnell was never a yeller — even if a staffer deserved it. Piper would walk in with bad news, and there would be no perceptible reaction.

"And I'd walk in another time, thinking that I had really wonderful news and couldn't wait to see his positive reaction. He was just as placid," said Piper. "Because his view is, you're up one day, you're down the next, and you just got to keep moving forward as best you can."

But moving inexorably forward now means something else to the man who has gotten his dream job. He wants to make his imprint on the Senate. And if he truly intends to channel someone like Henry Clay, McConnell will have to find areas where everyone can win.

That's precisely his gift, says retired Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. "He's very smart. He's very strategic. And he can find a common ground between warring factions and also has the knack for letting people have their say," said Hutchison, who watched him operate over her two decades in the Senate.

But he also knows how to push people toward a consensus, she says. McConnell has been a deal-maker at times — he helped forge the 2012 fiscal cliff deal, and more recently helped end the October 2013 government shutdown.

Democrats are quick to point out, however, that he has also led more than 500 filibusters against them since Obama took office. Binder says McConnell can only hope they don't retaliate in kind.

"Henry Clay hated the filibuster! He knew that it was preventing his Whig majority from getting anything done," Binder said.

So ironically, if Democrats do get their revenge on McConnell with filibusters, he'll have one more thing in common with his Kentucky hero.

Sen. Mitch McConnell

At 72, after 30 years in the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell has finally realized his life's ambition.

He never wanted to be president — he just wanted to be Senate majority leader. And when he ascends to that perch come January, McConnell will finally have a chance to shape the chamber he says he deeply loves. McConnell declared his first priority will be to make what's been called a paralyzed Senate function again. But the politician who became the face of obstruction over the past four years will have to persuade Democrats to cooperate.

Channeling Henry Clay

When you walk into McConnell's front office at the Capitol, the first thing you see on your right is a looming portrait of Henry Clay, the legendary Kentucky senator. Take a few more steps, and you'll notice that same portrait reflected in the mirror above the fireplace on your left — so his face is on either side of you.

Clay surrounds the visitor standing in the center of McConnell's space.

Two years ago on Kentucky Educational Television, McConnell paid tribute to the famed orator who helped broker pre-Civil War deals with states that had diametrically opposed interests.

"Clay obviously has a special place in the lives of many Kentuckians, and particularly somebody like me who ended up being in the Senate and looks to a person like Clay for guidance," McConnell said in the interview. "The way Clay operated — a marvelous combination of compromise and principle — is a lesson for the ages if you're a public official."

It's a lesson McConnell says he wants to bring back to the Senate.

"The Senate in the last few years basically doesn't do anything. We don't even vote," McConnell said in a press conference one day after the election.

Many blame McConnell for that. He did, after all, once declare that his top priority was to make Barack Obama a one-term president. Now, he says he wants to see the Senate become the chamber of deliberative debate. He wants to see it pass bills, not resort to procedural gamesmanship.

"This is the last rung of his political aspirations, and perhaps he has an incentive to make the place work — to make senators proud of it again," said Sarah Binder of the Brookings Institution.

But Democrats who suffered under McConnell's tactics over the past six years might be a little suspicious of Mitch McConnell, the sudden institutionalist.

"It really takes two cooperative parties to make the Senate work in this sort of fluid, collegial way. And we don't have two cooperative parties," Binder said.

Finding Areas Where Everyone Can Win

As the story often goes, Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr. grew up as a fighter. He fought off polio when he was 2, fought off bullies later in childhood, and became a fierce lover of sports. His former Chief of Staff Hunter Bates said that's why McConnell was drawn to politics.

"Because politics was a game where there were winners and losers and you kept score. And every play mattered," Bates said.

But friends say the relentless competitor always kept the bigger picture in mind, never wasting energy on minor skirmishes.

"He often says that the most important word in the English language is 'focus.' And I've never been able to see anyone maintain that focus no matter what's going on," said another former chief of staff, Billy Piper.

As Piper remembers it, McConnell was never a yeller — even if a staffer deserved it. Piper would walk in with bad news, and there would be no perceptible reaction.

"And I'd walk in another time, thinking that I had really wonderful news and couldn't wait to see his positive reaction. He was just as placid," said Piper. "Because his view is, you're up one day, you're down the next, and you just got to keep moving forward as best you can."

But moving inexorably forward now means something else to the man who has gotten his dream job. He wants to make his imprint on the Senate. And if he truly intends to channel someone like Henry Clay, McConnell will have to find areas where everyone can win.

That's precisely his gift, says retired Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. "He's very smart. He's very strategic. And he can find a common ground between warring factions and also has the knack for letting people have their say," said Hutchison, who watched him operate over her two decades in the Senate.

But he also knows how to push people toward a consensus, she says. McConnell has been a deal-maker at times — he helped forge the 2012 fiscal cliff deal, and more recently helped end the October 2013 government shutdown.

Democrats are quick to point out, however, that he has also led more than 500 filibusters against them since Obama took office. Binder says McConnell can only hope they don't retaliate in kind.

"Henry Clay hated the filibuster! He knew that it was preventing his Whig majority from getting anything done," Binder said.

So ironically, if Democrats do get their revenge on McConnell with filibusters, he'll have one more thing in common with his Kentucky hero.

Sen. Mitch McConnell