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Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire, Gemstone Mining

Fortune hunters flock to Madagascar’s sapphire mines (Agence France-Presse -January 8, 2017)

http://www.seychellesnewsagency.com/

(AFP) – The dusty figure is lowered slowly into the ground like a bucket into a well, armed with just a crowbar, a shovel and an old, unreliable headlamp. In the surrounding countryside, bodies rise and sink from hundreds of holes just wide enough for a man.

Children run between the rubble and the smell of cooking wafts from the makeshift shelters where women crouch over pots. Guards armed with hunting rifles stand by, turning the settlement of Betsinefe into a threatening scene. In the world of Madagascan sapphire mining, there are few rules.

Sapphires were first discovered in Madagascar in the late 1990s, and already the Indian Ocean island is one of the world’s largest producers of the precious stones. Its 250-kilometre-long (155-mile) deposit is among the biggest in the world and has sparked a sapphire rush.

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Ring-tailed lemurs face extinction amid sapphire-mining rush in Madagascar – by Ian Johnston (The Indpendent – December 21, 2016)

http://www.independent.co.uk/

The ring-tailed lemur of Madagascar is “disappearing right under our noses” as the iconic animal is hunted and trapped to extinction and its forest home is destroyed by people hunting for sapphires.

Lemurs are the most threatened group of vertebrates on the planet but it was thought the resourceful ring-tailed species – which featured in the hit cartoon film series Madagascar and the BBC’s recent Planet Earth II documentary – would be the last to die out.

However, despite their ability to survive in some of the harshest environments on the Indian Ocean island, they have been mostly reduced to small groups, researchers warned in a paper called Going, Going Gone: Is the Iconic Ring-railed Lemur Headed for Imminent Extirpation? in the journal Primate Conservation.

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A ‘sapphire rush’ has sent at least 45,000 miners into Madagascar’s protected rainforests – by Julia P G Jones (The Conservation – November 21, 2016)

http://theconversation.com/

The rainforests of Didy in eastern Madagascar usually ring with the calls of the indri, the island’s largest lemur. There is a different noise now: the chopping of trees, digging of gravel, and cheers of encouragement from the thousands of illegal miners who have flooded to these forests since sapphires were discovered in late September.

Bemainty, an area in the west of Didy, is experiencing a sapphire rush. Rosey Perkins, a gemologist, visited soon after the rush began in October. She estimated 45,000 people were already involved and that the mine was growing by 1,500 to 2,000 people a day. By now it may be significantly bigger. She told me:

“These gem deposits are found in the gravels of ancient river beds. Some are unusually large and have an attractive blue colour; there have been some phenomenal finds which are drawing in traders from as far away as Sri Lanka.”

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A million artisanal gold miners in Madagascar wait to come out of the shadows – by Emilie Filou (The Guardian – November 15, 2016)

https://www.theguardian.com/

The downturn in commodity prices has hit the mining industry globally but in Madagascar, it coincided with the end of a five-year period of turmoil, precipitated by a coup in 2009. Any hopes for the sector to propel itself back on the development track were dashed.

“Lots of mining companies came to Madagascar to explore [before 2009] but then we had the political crisis, with all the uncertainty and lack of visibility it brought, and even though we had elections in 2013, that uncertainty has not really lifted,” said Willy Ranjatoelina, executive secretary of the Madagascar Chamber of Mines.

In the mid-2000s, Madagascar had given the green light to two large-scale mining projects: Ambatovy, a $8bn (£6.4bn) nickel and cobalt project developed by a consortium led by Sherritt International, and QMM, a $1bn ilmenite project developed by Rio Tinto. Since then new projects have dried up.

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Illegal mining, weak government help Taliban expand in Afghan north – by Jawad Kakar (Reuters India – November 7, 2016)

http://in.reuters.com/

FAIZABAD, AFGHANISTAN – Afghan Taliban militants have strengthened their grip on lucrative illegal mining operations in the north of the country, as security forces focus most of their efforts on battling the insurgency in the volatile south, officials said.

Abuses by local commanders with private militias and beyond the purview of central government have also driven people into the hands of Islamist fighters, the officials added, making it easier for them to profit from small-scale mines in the region.

“The Taliban provide protection for the villagers to mine and the people are happy to do it despite the fact that there’s a presidential decree banning any uncontrolled mining,” said Gul Mohammad Bedar, deputy governor of Badakhshan province. He estimated that the militant group, fighting to overthrow the Western-backed government in Kabul, raised about a third of its funding needs in Badakhshan from deposits of minerals, including semi-precious lapis lazuli, found in its mountains.

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This startup is protecting Afghanistan’s prized rare emeralds – by Parija Kavilanz (CNN Money.com – August 29, 2016)

http://money.cnn.com/

In Afghanistan, where decades of warfare have ravaged the country, there’s a beautiful green oasis tucked between the mountains that’s home to something rare and precious.

The Panjshir Valley, located north of Afghanistan’s capital Kabul, is an area rich with more than 172 emerald mines. Known as Panjshir emeralds, the gems boast a unique bluish-green color that make them among the country’s most-iconic treasures.

Entrepreneur Habib Mohebi grew up in Kabul hearing about the emerald mines from friends local to that area. Years later, that knowledge would reconnect him to his homeland in a distinctive way.

Mohebi is the co-founder of Aria Gems, a company that mines and exports Panjshir emeralds.

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The dark side of gem stones in Colombia and beyond – by Eugen Iladi (Columbia Reports – July 26, 2016)

http://colombiareports.com/

The global market for colored gemstones, such as emeralds and rubies, is dominated by a few major players. One of the largest is Gemfields Plc, a U.K.-registered, London Stock Exchange-listed company with significant mining operations in Zambia, Mozambique, India, Sri Lanka and, recently, Colombia.

At first glance, things appear rosy at Gemfields, but a closer look reveals questionable deals and associations. As with blood diamonds, the precious stone trade purports to offer transparency, but many of its practices are murky and dark.

In September 2015, Gemfields announced a series of acquisitions in Colombia. The main target was a 70 percent stake in the Coscuez emerald mine in the mountainous province of Boyacá, one of the world’s best sources of emeralds.

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Emerald city: How gemstone-rich Colombia is embracing ethical sourcing – by Nathalie Atkinson (Globe and Mail – July 15, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

It may be churlish of me to highlight this during wedding season, but as scientist and jeweller Aja Raden points out in her cultural history Stoned, gemstones are “just colourful gravel.” She elaborates on the fraught history and desire around precious objects – pearls, emeralds, wristwatches – with diamonds as one cautionary tale via Marie Antoinette, whose downfall was precipitated by jewellery.

The human history of attraction to bright shiny objects has not exactly been about supply chain integrity or corporate social responsibility – instead, think envy, greed, violence, suffering, slavery, incursions and the guillotine.

To understand the role of gems and jewels in luxury today, it’s necessary to consider, as Raden does, the brilliant “A diamond is forever” campaign that De Beers whipped up in 1947 after the South African diamond rush that saw the company gain control of 99 per cent of the planet’s diamonds.

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New funding to boost ruby mining – by Martin Creamer (MiningWeekly.com – July 4, 2016)

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

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Coloured-gemstone miner and marketer Gemfields announced on Monday that it had finalised four new debt financing facilities totalling $65-million.

Gemfields CFO Janet Boyce said Gemfields now had the necessary funding to increase its rough ruby production to 20-million carats a year and rough emerald production to more than 40-million carats a year in the next three years.

The company outlined that nearly 70% of the new funding was destined for the Montepuez ruby mine in Mozambique. Headed by CEO Ian Harebottle, Gemfields is a London-headquartered Aim-listed multinational natural resources company in which JSE-listed Pallinghurst, headed by Brian Gilbertson, has a key investment.

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Money from Afghanistan’s ‘conflict jewels’ fuels war – activists – by Josh Smith and Mirwais Harooni (Reuters U.K. – June 7, 2016)

http://uk.reuters.com/

KABUL – The illegal mining of some of Afghanistan’s most important minerals is funnelling millions of dollars into the hands of insurgents and corrupt warlords, according to activists and officials who say the money is fuelling the conflict.

The mountains of Afghanistan hold as much as $1 trillion (£693.58 billion) to $3 trillion in mineral resources, according to estimates by the U.S. and Afghan governments, including world-famous lapis lazuli, a deep blue, semi-precious stone that has been mined in northern Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province for thousands of years.

“In the current circumstances, where 50 percent of the mining revenue is going to the Taliban, and before that it was going to armed groups, by any reasonable definition lapis is a conflict mineral,” said Stephen Carter, a researcher for Global Witness, a non-profit watchdog that investigates the links between natural resources, corruption and conflict.

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Greed, Corruption and Danger: A Tarnished Afghan Gem Trade – by Mujib Mashal (New York Times – June 5, 2016)

http://www.nytimes.com/

KABUL, Afghanistan — The local people called the militia’s takeover of the giant lapis mine in northeastern Badakhshan Province a white coup — easy and bloodless. Perhaps, but the seizure has become a lesson in how the lack of accountability and rule of law in Afghanistan can turn bounty into ruin.

Riding waves of excitement after a 2010 report by the United States military that Afghanistan’s mineral wealth could be worth as much as $1 trillion, the Lajwardeen Mining Company won a 15-year contract in 2013 to extract lapis lazuli in Badakhshan. For thousands of years, Afghanistan has been one of the chief sources of lapis lazuli, a prized blue gemstone associated with love and purity and admired by poets as well as jewelers.

Valued at about $125 million a year in 2014, the lapis trade had the potential to be worth at least double that, and Lajwardeen, owned by an Afghan family in the import-export business for three generations, saw a great opportunity.

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The Blood Rubies of Montepuez [Mozambique]- by Estaio Valoi (Foreign Policy – May 3, 2016)

http://foreignpolicy.com/

Some 40 percent of the world’s rubies lie in one mining concession in Mozambique, where a troubling pattern of violence and death contradicts the claim of “responsibly sourced.”

MONTEPUEZ, Mozambique — Mila Kunis embodies just the kind of woman that Gemfields, the world’s leading supplier of rare colored gemstones, wishes to entice: young, sensual, enigmatic — and affluent.

The 32-year-old Hollywood actress, best known for her roles in Black Swan and Oz the Great and Powerful, is the star of Gemfields’s promotional short film, showcasing jewelry made by top designers with stones mined at Montepuez, the world’s largest ruby concession and one of Gemfields’s latest acquisitions.

Located in northern Mozambique, Montepuez is thought to hold 40 percent of the world’s known supply of a precious stone that, since antiquity, has been associated with wealth and royalty.

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From Muzo emerald mine, Colombia’s ‘green fire’ goes global – by Richard Emblin (The City Paper – March 29, 2016)

http://thecitypaperbogota.com/

Changing an industry with a sometimes dark past

Green was the color of the day, from the stripes on the Bell helicopter, to the pilot’s gloves and headset, to the precious stones glittering within the mountains below.

Just a 40-minute chopper ride northeast of Bogotá, the famed Muzo emerald mines of Colombia are undergoing a profound physical and cultural transformation. In the central department of Boyacá, a North American company is formalizing a once outlaw industry still tarnished by its violent past.

Until his death from cancer in April 2013, Victor Carranza was the undisputed czar of Colombia’s “green fire.” Over the decades, illegal actors in the nation’s armed conflict vied to overtake the lucrative business, including left-wing guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries.

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(Gemological Institute of America – February 12, 2016)

http://www.gia.edu/

When it comes to selling colored stones, a retailer’s supply-chain knowledge has tangible benefits at the counter – or wherever the point of sale happens to be.

That’s what Andy Lucas, GIA’s education manager of field gemology, and Dr. Tao Hsu, technical editor and research specialist for Gems & Gemology, told local GIA alumni and Women’s Jewelry Association members at GIA’s Carlsbad campus on Jan. 13. Lucas and Hsu have traveled the world together to discover and document what happens as a gemstone travels from the mine to the market.

The allure of colored stones has not changed much over the centuries, Lucas said, so retailers need to share the romance and adventure. “The people who are more knowledgeable about the story are better at making customers feel comfortable, at gaining their trust and at piquing their interest,” he said.

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Pardieu Brings Ruby Rush to Life with Stories, Updates from Madagascar – by Jaime Kautsky (Gemological Institute of America – March 10, 2016)

http://www.gia.edu/

A gem “fingerprint.” That’s what Vincent Pardieu, senior manager of field gemology for GIA in Bangkok, and his six-person team are looking for as they traverse the globe – and log hours in the lab – finding, analyzing and cataloging colored stones for GIA’s Colored Stone Identification and Origin Report reference collection.

So when Pardieu’s team learned of a newly discovered ruby deposit in northeast Madagascar in July 2015, they arranged a field expedition and set to work investigating and documenting the rubies of the island nation’s Zahamena National Park.

On Nov. 4, just a month after their trip, Pardieu and field assistant Manuel Diaz visited GIA’s Carlsbad campus to share their findings − and sometimes harrowing experiences − with students and staff.

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