Well, for now the answer is yes.  Mugabe had been threatening to sell the diamonds with or without certification but reached an agreement with the KP that two batches of the Marange diamonds could be sold between now and September with the KP’s approval.

In September, there will be another review of the situation in Marange.

However, Ethical Weddings supplier, Cred – the Fair Trade Jeweller, believes that this is a:

…missed opportunity for KP to become an ethical mark, where they could have expanded their definition of conflict to include human rights abuses.

Get Cred’s view on the Zimbabwe diamonds debate on their Fair Trade Jeweller blog.

Katie

NGOs have threatened to leave the KP if it fails to sever ties with Zimbabwe in the face of ongoing human rights abuses.

Today delegates from the KP are meeting in Israel and will decide whether to suspend Zimbabwe’s membership.

See Reuters’ report from earlier today: ‘Civil society urges action on Zimbabwe diamonds‘

Katie

Diamond mining is fueling conflict and contributing to political oppression and unspeakable human suffering, including rape, torture, murder, and forced labor.  Unfortunately, the response of the KP has proven far from adequate. Zimbabwean diamonds mined with complete disregard for basic human rights are currently being sold in jewelry stores with “conflict free” certification.

Several years ago, following the global outcry against blood diamonds that led to the KP, Brilliant Earth was founded to pioneer a new way of doing business in the jewelry industry. Our idea was simple: to offer high-quality jewelry that is ethical and beneficial for all involved. As a retailer, we feel passionate about—and even responsible for—creating a more humane diamond industry.

To further our consumer educational campaigns, we have launched a petition on Change.org to give individuals an easy and effective way to add their voice to the call for KP reform.

To show our support and encourage consumer action, we will donate a dollar to communities harmed by the jewelry trade for every new signature up to $10,000!

Sign the petition to lend your support to this campaign.

For more info on the problems with the Kimberley Process, take a look at the video Brilliant Earth has posted on YouTube: ‘Blood diamonds being labeled as “Conflict-Free”‘

We’d love to get your thoughts on the Kimberley Process and hear about your experiences trying to buy conflict-free diamonds.  Just leave a comment below.

Katie

That was 10 years ago. Since then NGOs and the jewellery industry have been knee-deep in debate on whether it works or not.  Forged certificates, diamonds smuggled to countries where they could be sold as ‘conflict-free’ and the scope to cover only rough diamonds not cut ones are just some of the issues.

The 21st Century Network has written a critique of the Kimberley Process and would love your comments. Read Ethics in the 21st Century Diamond Jewelry Industry (II/III): The Kimberley process and beyond and let them (and us!) know what you think.

Katie

According to petitioning organisation, Avaaz, 200 civilians have been murdered in the process and the profits from these dirty diamonds – which could end up in our engagement or wedding rings – will help fund the ongoing violent political conflict in this troubled country.

Official diamond regulators are due to meet in Namibia this week and will decide whether to suspend Zimbabwe and stop Mugabe selling his diamonds on the world market.

Avaaz is trying to get at least 100,000 signatures on a petition in the next 24 hours to deliver directly to Namibia and get the diamond regulators to stop the flow of these blood diamonds.

The petition reads:

Petition to global diamond regulator, the Kimberley Process:
Zimbabwe diamonds do not comply with Kimberley standards, nor can they be certified as “conflict-free”. We urge you to suspend Zimbabwe from the global diamond trade until the army pulls out of Marange, violence ends, abuses are investigated and Kimberley controls are upheld. Otherwise the Kimberley Process’s public credibility will be tarnished and the whole diamond industry will lose.

Sign the petition to ban Zimbabwe’s blood diamonds.

Katie

See also:

Conflict free diamonds

Free Greenland Ruby

Furore over fair trade gold

How to choose the right engagement ring?

Choosing a ring can be time consuming, expensive and stressful. So how do you find a deal that will leave both you and your fiancée smiling?

BUDGET:
An obvious starting point is to consider how much you want to spend. Traditionally, men have been expected to part with between one and two months salary. But the short answer is that you should invest as much as you feel you can realistically afford – it’s certainly not worth getting yourself into financial difficulties.

JEWELLER:
Make sure that you are dealing with a reputable retailer. They should be willing for you to examine their rings under a jeweller’s loupe, and should be more than happy to answer any technical questions that you might have.

You might want to consider only buying a diamond that comes with independent certification from a recognised laboratory. If a particular stone hasn’t been certified independently, your jeweller should have no objection to you getting it certified at your own expense before committing to purchase.

And remember you are entitled to ask your jeweller to prove to you exactly where his diamonds come from. If he or she is in any way unhelpful or evasive, perhaps think twice about buying.

DIAMONDS:
How do you choose the best diamond to suit your budget? At this point you will have to wade through a bit of technical jargon to make sure you get it right.

Carat Weight: Generally speaking, the bigger the diamond, the more valuable it is. Traditionally, men often bought one-carat stones for engagement rings, but it is perfectly acceptable to buy stones of less than a carat as prices go up exponentially with size.

TIP: A good quality stone of less than a carat may well represent better value for money.

Cut: The better the cut, the more effectively the stone will reflect and refract light. This is one area where it is not worth compromising. Budget permitting, try to choose a diamond with at least a ‘Good’ cut grade. The term cut can also be a reference to the stones shape, whether it is Round Brilliant, Princess, or some other fancy shape.

TIP: The Round Brilliant cut has been evolved over decades to maximize a diamond’s sparkle more than other cuts.

Colour: Very few diamonds are perfectly white; most have a natural hint of colour in them. Colour is graded from D down to Z. Ideally, you would aim for something in the range E-H, anything above ‘H’ will look white to the naked eye.

Clarity: Most diamonds have small imperfections or impurities trapped inside them, known as inclusions. Stones graded I1 and below contain inclusions that are visible with the naked eye. Ideally, you would aim for at least VS2 clarity, but if your budget is stretched you could consider dropping to SI clarity without it being a problem.

SETTINGS:
Most modern engagement rings are made from white metals with a solitaire diamond. But any information you have about your partner’s taste in jewellery is priceless. Do you have access to any other rings she has bought, or does she have a friend you can trust to advise you? Some jewellers will offer you an exchange for another ring of similar value.

TIP: You might choose to buy a loose diamond, which you can present to her at the moment you get engaged. Then the two of you can go shopping together, and she can pick a ring to set it in.

Finally, if you are reading this blog, you will know that there are significant ethical considerations to buying an engagement ring or wedding band. You can read about how we tackle these issues at Ingle & Rhode under our ethical jewellery policies or talk about them with other brides and grooms in the ethical engagement ring section of the Ethical Weddings Forum

Name: Tim Ingle and David Rhode

Location: Piccadilly, London

Tell us a bit about yourself and your business

We offer ethical fine jewellery – engagement rings and wedding bands whose provenance we can guarantee. Our gold is fairly traded and produced without cyanide or mercury, our diamonds are guaranteed conflict-free, and jewellery is made in the UK under British health and safety laws.

There is no child labour at any point in our supply chain, and unlike almost all other jewellers, we are completely transparent about where our materials come from.

What or who inspires you?

We source our gold from the EcoAndina Foundation in Argentina, whose role is to protect sustainable village life. They do this by supplying solar power to pump water, which makes local agriculture much more effective.

They also provide electricity to local villages, and help to provide hard currency though environmentally friendly mining projects.

The people who work for EcoAndina have dedicated their lives to their work, going to live in the middle of nowhere to help the local people – we find that very inspiring.

What do you enjoy most about running your business?

Most of our clients are in the process of getting engaged or married, and it’s nice to deal with people at these happy moments.

Also, it’s very satisfying to feel that we are doing work that has a positive social impact in the developing world.

What is the most challenging aspect?

It is important to challenge the misperception that being ethical means compromising on quality or on price – it really doesn’t.

What do you feel you bring to an ethical wedding?

The dress will be worn once, the cake will be eaten once, but wedding jewellery should last forever. It’s very important that it shouldn’t be tainted by the ethical problems that plague the conventional jewellery industry.

How do you see the wedding industry changing over the next five years (if at all)?

Increasingly, consumers are demanding that businesses act ethically, and there is no reason to think that this trend won’t continue. I’m very optimistic that the wedding industry will continue to change for the better.

Find out more about ethical jewellery designers, Ingle & Rhode

If you have any questions you’d like to put to Tim & David about gold, diamonds or ethical jewellery in general, please send them in!

Take care,

Katie
Chat about ethical engagement rings in the Ethical Weddings Forum

We will be hosting the event with Cred Jewellery and the Sussex Fair Trade Network to raise awareness of the social and environmental issues surrounding gold and diamonds – that go beyond conflict or blood diamonds - and the route towards fair trade accreditation of gold and diamonds that Greg Valerio of Cred Jewellery has been spearheading.

Greg will be talking about his experiences to date and what future he sees for fair trade gold and diamonds; he will also be joined by other key speakers from the fair trade world (TBA).

The event will take place on the afternoon of 10 May at The Friends Meeting House in Brighton and it would be great if you could join us – so get that date in the diary now!

Take care,

Katie
Chat in the Ethical Weddings Forum about ethical engagement rings and wedding rings

Firstly, due to the Kimberley Process the likelihood of someone buying a conflict diamond is now less than 1%.

The only main source for these stones is now the Cote D’Ivoire which will account for approx $23 million in an industry worth $60 billion.

This is however still very concerning and therefore important as $23 million buys a lot of guns.

Canadian Diamonds are, however, the best current source of stones for the following reasons if bought from certain companies.

• Canada is conflict free
• Consent has been given by native groups as to the land from which they are mined
• Mining companies have had to place financial securities with the Canadian Government as a fund to be used for restoration of the environment after the mining has been finished

The stones Cred uses have been mined, cut and polished in Canada, come with a certificate of origin, and have an environmental certificate as well. Currently, it is the best system in the world, but by no means foolproof.

Canadian stones do not, however, answer the problems of poverty and exploitation in Africa and this remains a serious concern. Cred continues to work on a fair trade process for diamonds which we believe is the answer to the issues surrounding alluvial diamonds.

Campaign NGOs are exactly what they are, campaign groups, they research and highlight the negative hoping that this will bring about the change they believe is the right one. Sometimes however their solution is wrong and because they are broadly unaccountable (they call it independent) and broadly disengaged from business they do not have the required knowledge to be able to respond holistically.

They will never be able to solve the problem because they are not in the diamond business, they are on the sidelines looking in. Global Witness and Amnesty International particularly are guilty of this. They have rightly highlighted issues that were/are occuring and for that we must be thankful. But they are not the answer.

When I have spoken to them, historically, they have not really grasped the extent of the social, environmental and livelihood issues diamond diggers face (this is the real violence in the diamond industry) nor have they had any creative ideas as to how to solve the problem. This has been their great failing, focusing on conflict to the neglect of the broader and more endemic issues.

This is why we are articulating as a social business that Fair Trade and a Fair Trade Diamond will begin to address these issues. There is much work to be done to deliver this idea, but the exciting thing is that we are making good progress and I anticipate a FT stone within the next 5 years. This will be 5 years too late for many people, it is for me, but guilt is the paymaster general of inertia, hope is the mother of justice and therefore we must deliver.

For more information you are very welcome to contact us at info@credjewellery.com or visit our website www.credjewellery.com

Greg Valerio

Read more posts on engagement and wedding rings

To open the diamond debate, we have picked up on a thread in the Ethical Weddings Forum suggesting that Canadian diamonds, often seen as the hassle free way to find conflict free diamonds, are perhaps not as clean as they seem.

The thread takes us to Mining Watch and their article: There Are No Clean Diamonds: What You Need to Know About Canadian Diamonds

The gist of the article seems to be that huge transnationals operating in Canada are using the ‘conflict free’ tag to keep their diamonds sparkling clean – so sparkling in fact as to blind the consumer to the impacts of diamond mining on the environment and on the Aboriginal people who are living there.

A typical example is De Beers who declare their diamonds conflict free but are under boycott for their involvement (with the Botswana government they jointly run all the country’s diamond mines) in the eviction of the Kalahari Bushmen after diamonds were discovered on their land. 

And De Beers is one of the big operators in ‘clean’ Canada.

We’re talking about exploitation of resources – human and environmental – and the article details the scale and scope of each major Canadian mine and the impact it is having and will have once its stash of diamonds has been exhausted, the mine is abandoned, local jobs are lost and the environment irretrievably damaged.

Mining Watch encourages the public to fight for justice, human rights and environmental protection for miners worldwide.

Check out the Canadian diamonds article and let us know your thoughts in the Forum.

Katie