Awakening to Blood Diamonds

It may surprise some people, but as a jewelry artist I don't use new diamonds (meaning newly-mined) in my work. Here's why.

Despite all the self-justifying spin predictably produced by the jewelry and precious-materials mining industries, the 2006 film Blood Diamond starring Leonardo DiCaprio has had a major impact on the global market for fine jewelry.

The response of these closely-tied industries was to promote its method of stopping the trade of 'conflict diamonds,' a 2003 standard called the Kimberley Process. Set in Sierra Leone, Blood Diamond testifies to the wide-scale human rights abuses the Kimberley Process was intended to address. In the diamond mining trade there, across vast areas of the country miners work in alluvial (open water) mines under harsh conditions.

It worked. A carefully calculated "Whew!" went up from the massive jewelry establishment when it appeared the public outcry would be insubstantial. In fact, no plummet in sales resulted. "Kimberley Process" was the new watchword of jewelry salespeople, used like a shield against the growing tide of questions they receive daily. Few consumers are equipped to penetrate the veil of this balleyhooed but deeply compromised standard.

But since the film was released, the tide of public awareness and opinion has taken a sharp turn. A familiar hero of conscious consumption is quietly claiming another victory……the Internet. Information about the KP's actual effectiveness finally spread online. Consensus : the Kimberley standard helps, but much more oversight is needed to eliminate the worst abuses to the environment, workers and communities. Diamonds still fund wars in West Africa. Surface miners are still frequently children who work 10-16 hours a day in the hot sun for pennies. The situation essentially constitutes enslavement. The 'employers' know the workers have very few or no other options for work.

Concerning the ravaged earth, in Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Congo, entire square miles are ruined by surface mining operations and left unremediated. Alluvial mining sites typically look like moonscapes when their value is exhausted.

The real problem with the Kimberley Process is that few people realize how incompletely it covers the overall impact of diamond mining. Its scope is to prevent diamonds from funding regional wars by preventing their export. KP is not a fair trade standard, meaning it does not rate working conditions for laborers or payment of a living wage. For the diamond mining laborers in Sierra Leone, there has apparently been very little change in conditions. It also is mute on environmental impacts.

Yet the story takes a turn here because natural diamonds are extremely powerful.

Diamonds obviously have great cultural value to convey status and wealth, but few people know that according to the Vedas (the early spiritual texts that underlie Hinduism, ayurveda, yoga and vedic astrology), not only have diamonds been relied upon for specific medicinal properties but they have the power to shift the subtle forces that the planets exert on each of us.

Vedic astrologers have for thousands of years prescribed the use of gemstones, gold and silver to strengthen afflicted and weak planets in the birth chart. Diamonds are one of the nine main Vedic gemstones, described by these ancient scriptures as increasing artistic abilities, charisma and devotion to a partner, and gives an affinity for life's (other) luxuries. Natural, untreated diamonds are worn to strengthen Venus in the Vedic chart, granting a gentle, happy disposition, consideration for others, and enjoyment of the arts.

Medically, diamonds have also been prescribed by vaidyas (ayurvedic physicians) for centuries in the treatment of several chronic diseases, especially when set in a white metal such as white gold or platinum. Clearly this is a stone that the early sages saw as a strong ally for humans.

Which brings us back to the current business climate, in which no true fairly traded diamonds exist. As a jeweler who follows Vedic precepts, then, I'm presented with an challenge. But not all hope is lost. Although I don't buy newly-mined stones, in some cases I will re-purpose a diamond from an older piece of jewelry (or loose diamonds already owned), for use in a new piece that I – and the client, often – design. In this way, no one acquires more 'karmic debt' by continuing to feed the global diamond mining industry. And there is nothing more beautiful than a familiar stone in a lovely new setting.

Similarly, it's difficult to find gold that is consistent with green values. From www.ethicalmetalsmiths.com,

In reality, most of our gold comes from vast open pit mines in remote locations operated by large, multinational corporations. These mines consume excessive amounts of water and energy, create mountains of waste rock and fill acres of ponds with toxic chemicals. They consume wilderness areas, threaten economies and indigenous communities, and can cause perpetual pollution.

Entire mountains of cyanide-laced tailings are still created by large-scale gold mines. A single gold ring creates 20-30 tons of rock waste, usually heavily laced with cyanide, a persistent environmental poison. Despite recent growth in the number of small-scale artisanal gold mines, the demand for 'green' gold has not yet solidified into a significant market segment. The entire supply chain is in a transitional period, as the buying public all over the developed world wakes up to the real toll that their purchase of sparkling gems takes.

With my next posts, I plan to lay out how a US microbusiness (Devi Jewels) resolves these issues given the current options. It's the complexity of sourcing embraced by the entrepreneur-as-activist. I don't just buy stuff. Many questions are asked of each supplier, as I'll detail in a further post. Most are quite upfront with disclosing their operations and suppliers farther down the line.

Toward that end, I am currently looking for the most eco-friendly supplier of gold raw materials from gold-filled to 22k yellow gold.

Despite that most gold and gemstones are mined in faraway Burma or Sierra Leone, these issues are now front and center on the national news stage and major corporate advertising, even having entered the election news cycle. John McCain's running mate Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, has been, and remains, a staunch supporter of the huge Pebble gold and copper mine proposal, which would put toxic effluent directly into the Bristol Bay watershed, threatening the largest run of sockeye salmon in the world.

The extractive industries never sleep in their drive to plunder the earth's mantle. But that also means that jewelry retailers are in a position to play a pivotal role to set the 'ship' of consumer demand on a new course.