Sustainable Mining: The Importance of Responsibly-Sourced Diamonds and Gemstones – by Steve Bennett (Huffington Post – September 22, 2015)

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/

Steve Bennett is the founder of Gemporia.

This blog is part of a month-long focus around sustainable fashion across HuffPost UK Style and Lifestyle. Here we aim to champion some of the emerging names in fashion and shine a light on the truth about the impact our appetite for fast fashion has around the world.

The trade of unethical diamonds and gemstones is something that the jewellery industry has become increasingly concerned with in recent years. The film release of Blood Diamond in 2006 put the issue into the forefront, leading businesses to readdress their ethical approach following the uproar from celebrities and industry leaders alike calling for the international governments to take notice.

However, as the spotlight starts to fade, it is important that the subject remains a high profile one. The fact that unsustainable mining still exists today is because there is a demand for it; change only happens when the diamond and gemstone trade are effectively challenged. For example, over a quarter of rough cut diamonds in circulation are being processed as blood diamonds.

A ground-breaking report back in 1998 was one of the first to call out the issues of the trade; exposing the role of diamonds funding war in Angola.

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Rough Cut: Nearly all the world’s diamonds-legal or not-pass through this one Indian city – by Jason Miklian (Foreign Policy Magazine – January 2, 2013)

http://foreignpolicy.com/

SURAT, India — The Gujarat Mail is just another red-eye train. Twelve powder-blue passenger cars crisscrossing, like so many hundreds of others, India’s northwestern breadbasket through the dark of night. At five minutes past two, the Mail begins its four-hour journey, lumbering south from Surat to Mumbai. Inside, the third-class cabins are equal parts scurrying roaches and dangling unwashed feet; fading monsoon rains that bleed through the iron-barred windows grant only fleeting mercies.

A few hundred unwilling insomniacs are sandwiched together, helplessly sweating on filthy vinyl benches as the shrieking of the rails splinters dreams along every gentle bend. In this part of the world, it’s an utterly unexceptional journey.

Aside from the $25 million or so in freshly polished diamonds on board, that is. The grungy wagons are filled with dozens of diamond mules, each man secretly carrying tens of thousands of dollars of stones inside custom-made tank tops with hidden stomach pouches.

Everyone sleeps with one eye open. Despite their attempts at traveling incognito, the nervous paces of the conductor — and the fact that the doors are bolted from the outside for the entirety of the trip — belie the false sense of ease. Altogether, the mules on this sweltering, tense train trip shuttle almost every single diamond sold in the world today.

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Lab-grown diamonds set to fill projected deficit as mined production declines – by Zandile Mavuso (Mining Weekly – September 18, 2015)

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Technological developments that enable manufacturers to produce grown diamonds have presented the industry with a significant growth opportunity, with a noticeable influence on the economy and the diamond value chain, as researchers predict the demand for grown diamonds to double in the next ten years.

This is because, in addition to the jewellery industry, manufacturing and energy companies also use grown diamonds. Singapore-based grown diamonds manufacturer IIa Technologies (pronounced ‘2a Technologies) says this is a result of the projected decline of mined diamond supply, as the quality levels of mined diamonds are unpredictable for high-technology applications; further, almost all of the mined diamond production is absorbed by the gems and jewellery industry.

Owing to this, grown diamonds are filling an important gap in the diamond industry as a new source of raw material.

Consulting firm Frost & Sullivan’s ‘Grown Diamond Impact 2050’ report, published last year, indicates that mined diamonds are a finite resource, considering the extreme and rare occurrence of the natural surroundings in which they are formed. Therefore, the sustainability of the mined diamond industry as a primary source for the industry is declining.

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AUDIO: [De Beers and Attawapiskat] After the Last River screens at Bay Street Film Festival in Thunder Bay (CBC News Thunder Bay – September 10, 2015)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/

Movie highlights relationship between First Nation and mining company in northern Ontario

The Bay Street Film Festival kicks off Thursday through Sunday in Thunder Bay. One highly-anticipated film screens Thursday evening after receiving a great deal of attention during production.

After the Last River tells the story of the Attawapiskat First Nation’s experience with the nearby De Beers diamond mining company in northern Ontario.

The small community near James Bay garnered international attention for its’ social issues through the grassroots Idle No More campaign.

Vicki Lean, the film’s director, said there’s not enough discussion about how mining companies and small communities can impact each other.

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[Zimbabwe Diamonds] The tragic saga of Marange (Zimbabwe Independent – September 4, 2015)

http://www.theindependent.co.zw/

In 2000, a small geological survey team from De Beers Ltd, the largest diamond mining company in the world and a global top 500 enterprise, moved into a camp on the banks of the Save river. They secured an Exclusive Prospecting Order (EPO) over a large area and began to probe for raw diamonds. They found ample evidence of diamonds and sent loads of soil to Johannesburg, South Africa, for analysis but after six years decided that the qualities of the stones on site were not good enough to warrant commercial exploitation.

Eddie Cross

In London another company, African Consolidated Resources (ACR), formed by a group of Zimbabweans, watched the developments very carefully. When De Beers failed to renew their EPO over the area, they moved very quickly to take up the EPO and registered claims over 3 800 hectares of land that they identified as having the most potential.

Under the guidance of an experienced Australian geologist, the company cut deep trenches across the site and in a matter of weeks discovered gem quality stones. Although less than 20% of all the stones recovered were in this category, they felt that it was commercially viable because of the low cost of extraction.

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Cameroon involved in Central Africa ‘blood diamond’ trade: U.N. experts – by Louis Charbanneau (Reuters U.S. – September 1, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

UNITED NATIONS – Illicit trafficking of diamonds from Central African Republic into neighboring Cameroon is helping finance the continuation of a nearly three-year conflict, an expert panel that monitors U.N. sanctions said in a confidential report.

Central African Republic (CAR) descended into chaos in March 2013 when predominantly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power, triggering reprisals by “anti-balaka” Christian militias who drove tens of thousands of Muslims from the south in a de facto partition of the landlocked country.

Although rival armed groups agreed to a peace accord in May, the conflict has continued at a lower intensity, and a transitional government has been unable to assert its authority over all of the vast, mineral-rich territory.

The export of diamonds from CAR was banned in May 2013 by the Kimberley Process, which represents 81 countries, including the United States, the European Union, Russia, China and all major diamond-producing nations. The group was formed to prevent so-called blood diamonds from funding conflicts.

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Want to Make a Diamond in Just 10 Weeks? Use a Microwave – by Hannah Murphy, Thomas Biesheuvel and Sonja Elmquist (Bloomberg Businessweek – August 27, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Microwaved stones—no dirty mines or bloody conflicts—might be a girl’s next-best friend

The 2.62-carat diamond Calvin Mills bought his fiancée in November is a stunner. Pear-shaped and canary-yellow, the gem cost $22,000. A bargain. Mills, the chief executive officer of CMC Technology Consulting in Baton Rouge, La., says he could have spent tens of thousands more on a comparably sized diamond mined out of the earth, but his came from a lab.

“I got more diamond for less money,” says the former Southern University football player, who proposed last year at halftime during one of his alma mater’s games at the Superdome in New Orleans.

While man-made gems make up just a fraction of the $80 billion global diamond market, demand is increasing as buyers look for stones that are cheaper—and free of ethical taint. Human-rights groups, with help from Hollywood, have popularized the term “blood diamonds” to call attention to the role diamond mining has played in fueling conflicts in Africa.

Unlike imitation diamonds such as cubic zirconia, stones that are “grown” (the nascent industry’s preferred term) in labs have the same physical characteristics and chemical makeup as the real thing.

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Inside the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Diamond Mines – by Aryn Baker (Time Magazine – August 27, 2015)

http://time.com/

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, almost all diamond mining is done by hand. It’s a labor-intensive process that requires hauling away layers of dirt and rock, sometimes 50 feet deep, to expose ancient beds of gravel where the crystals are found. Miners then wash and sift that gravel one shovelful at a time in search of tiny glints of light that might be a diamond.

If they are lucky, a peppercorn-size crystal could fetch them a few dollars, once the mine owner gets his take. In New York’s diamond district such a gem, cut and polished, would be worth several hundred dollars.

Lynsey Addario and I journeyed to the heart of Congo’s diamond mining district in August to report on an $81.4 billion industry that links the miners of Tshikapa with the glittering salesrooms of the world’s jewelry retailers.

It was an arduous trip, one that required an internal flight on an airline that has been blacklisted by the European Union for its shaky safety record, followed by long 4×4 drives on red dirt tracks down to the mining sites.

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Where the Dead Become Diamonds – by Roc Morin (The Atlantic – October 14, 2015)

http://www.theatlantic.com/

A Swiss company wants to change the way people mourn by transforming the remains of their loved ones into gems.

“When a man of 80 kilos is cremated, he becomes 2.5 kilos of ashes,” Rinaldo Willy explained. “With these ashes, we make a diamond of 0.2 grams, smaller than a button on your shirt. How heavy is the soul—if we have a soul?”

In its coupling of the tangible and intangible, it is a question that epitomizes Willy’s work. Every year, Algordanza, the company he founded in 2004, receives more than 800 urns filled with human ashes. For between $5,000 and $20,000, the contents of each parcel are transformed into a diamond.

It is also more than a diamond. “Maybe ‘soul’ is too strong of a word,” Willy continued, still struggling to define the essence of his product. “Our process is purely physical—but if the deceased had blue eyes, and the diamond turns out blue, you can be sure that the family will say, ‘Oh, it’s exactly the color of his eyes.’”

We were sitting on the cool leather couches of Algordanza’s simple reception room in the sleepy town of Chur, Switzerland.

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Gemfields’ ray of sunshine in depressed resource sector – by Lawrence Williams (Mineweb.com – July 23, 2015)

http://www.mineweb.com/

Miner’s ruby deposit in Mozambique described as ‘potentially one of the most exciting discoveries in Africa in decades’.

LONDON – In the current resource investment climate it is reassuring to see an announcement from a gemstones miner, which would seem to offer great growth potential and whose stock price performance is bucking the general resource stocks trend. Indeed it might even be doing rather better if the sentiment for resource stocks in general wasn’t quite so depressed.

The miner is London AIM-listed Gemfields (GEM), effectively controlled by Brian Gilbertson’s Pallinghurst Resources Fund (named after a road in exclusive Johannesburg suburb Westcliff close to where Gilbertson used to have his home).

Gemfields’ assets include the 75%-owned Kagem emerald mine in Zambia and the Fabergé brand name, as well as a similar sized interest in the Montepuez ruby deposit located in the Montepuez district of Cabo Delgado province in northern Mozambique. The company has just announced what looks to be a highly positive resource and economic assessment of the latter.

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Lutsel K’e First Nation says board caved to De Beers in Snap Lake decision – by Guy Quenneville (CBC News North – June 26, 2015)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north

First Nation’s land manager says De Beers issued ‘ultimatum’ to board to have dissolved solids limit increased

The manager of environment for the Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation (LKDFN) says the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board has caved in to pressure from De Beers Canada, the owner of the N.W.T.’s Snap Lake diamond mine.

On Thursday, the board recommended changes to De Beers’ water licence for Snap Lake — changes that De Beers hopes will make it easier for the company to manage a higher than expected volume of underground water rich in total dissolved solids, and which, according to the company, are needed to keep the mine from closing prematurely.

But Peter Unger, the manager of wildlife, lands and environment for the Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation, says De Beers is just playing hardball to get what it wants

“It’s very difficult to not see that as a form of threat, really,” said Unger. “That is one of the things that disturbs us: the mining company was able to come in and basically issue an ultimatum to the board. And it kind of looks like that ultimatum worked.”

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Uncertain future for global diamond trade as profits vanish – by Tova Cohen and Ari Rabinovitch (Reuters U.S. – June 24, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

TEL AVIV – The family businesses that make up the global diamond trade have seen their profits wiped out over the past five years, hit by shaky financing, increased costs and uncertain demand from customers who prefer hi-tech gadgets to bling.

Manufacturers who cut and polish diamonds have found themselves caught between giant mining companies charging high prices for rough stones, and big retail chains that demand gems at low margins to keep sales moving.

While the $80 billion overall spent on diamond jewelry last year was a record, the manufacturers are expected to share a profit of just $100 million in 2015. That is half last year’s total and down from $900 million in 2010, according to Chaim Even-Zohar of Tacy Ltd and Pranay Narvekar of Pharos Beam in Mumbai, two of the industry’s top consultants.

Even-Zohar estimated that 300,000 Chinese and Indian workers had been laid off out of nearly 1 million employed in gemcutting in those two countries, where most manufacturing takes place.

“The rule of supply and demand doesn’t necessarily apply to the diamond sector,” said Yoram Dvash, a high-end polisher in Israel who outsources his rough stones to smaller Israeli polishers.

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[Diamonds in Saskatchewan] New Frontiers: ‘Looking far into the future’ – by Joel Schlesinger (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – May 21, 2015)

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/index.html

Saskatchewan is a diamond in the rough — literally. The province has long been a global player in uranium and potash mining. And diamond mining might someday be added to the list.

In fact, the province has experienced a bit of a ‘diamond rush’ in the northeast thanks to a promising find near La Ronge, called the Pikoo Diamond Project.

“The samples are some of the best ever found in Canada; even better than the Point Lake discovery that launched the country’s diamond mining industry,” says Nick Thomas, with North Arrow Minerals, an exploration firm with the largest stake in the area.

“The Achilles heel is the size of the discovery — it’s smaller than others in Canada, but we’re still learning about it, and it did add a lot of excitement at a bleak time in the exploration sector.” Already many very junior exploration firms are staking claims around North Arrow’s find, hoping to discover more deposits.

The heightened diamond activity comes at a time when exploration spending across Canada is down significantly from previous years. In 2011, according to data released by Natural Resources Canada (NRC), firms spent $4.2 billion in Canada on exploration.

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Inside the secret, intricate world of diamonds – by Rita Celli (CBC News Business – May 14, 2015)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa

Cash only, hyper-secure world where very few know how stones are priced

“If you think platinum or gold is secret. It doesn’t hold a candlelight to diamonds,” says a smiling Ron Gashinski, retired Ontario geologist and one of the lead players to set up a controversial diamond royalty in the province.

“No one touches the diamonds. Not even the people cleaning them. They have to put their hands in a glove box,” says Gashinski. “The daily production is in a thermos, about the size of a Tim Horton’s coffee, and a guy with gloves hits a keypad so a door opens, and this arm puts the diamonds into a vault.”

Ontario’s only diamond mine, north of Attiwapiskat, is part of a high stakes, and secret world of diamonds. From the way the stones are stored, valued, and shipped around the world, the De Beers Victor mine is a piece of an intricate global puzzle. Everything is precise, and hyper-calculated.

“There are no accidents,” says Gashinski. “It is a strange business. A cash business. Before anyone can buy those diamonds from De Beers, they have to put cash in the bank. There are no lines of credit. It’s a built in ‘I trust you when the money is in the bank, up until then these are my diamonds.'”

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Diamond cutting takes tenuous hold in Sudbury, Ont. – by Rita Celli (CBC News Business – May 14, 2015)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa

Community leaders say too many jobs were filled by outsiders

The future of diamond-cutting in Sudbury, Ont., remains unclear as De Beer’s Victor mine is set to operate only for the next four years, removing its highest quality supplier of stones.

Retired Ontario gemmologist Ron Gashinski says the government fought hard for a ‘beneficiation’ agreement with De Beers to ensure that at least 10 per cent of the diamonds harvested from the Victor mine would be cut and polished in Canada.

Many of the diamonds that are cut and polished at the Crossworks facility in Sudbury come from De Beers Victor mine, Ontario’s first and only diamond mine; a remote operation that’s a one-and-a-half hour direct charter flight north of Timmins.

“It’s like you’re only getting Dom Perignon. You’re not getting the Baby Duck,” enthuses Dylan Dix, an executive for Crossworks.

“You have such a high level of gem quality. It’s essentially an anomaly,” says Dix. “Such wonderful, beautiful diamond crystals. It’s quite a pleasure to polish them.”

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