Dirty gold and dodgy diamonds

Despite the introduction of an international scheme in 2003 aimed at cleaning-up the diamond trade, charities are concerned that the industry remains inextricably involved with fueling conflicts and using child labour.

Last year, Cafod launched a campaign to raise awareness about the supply of gold - protests have included presenting managers of Argos, H Samuel and Ernst Jones with gold chains. Now British designer Katharine Hamnett is taking an active role with the launch of her own label of ethical jewellery, Cred.

The diamond industry has always been dodgy. Although the De Beers family no longer control 80% of the world market in diamonds, many people feel that the whole trade is an environmental and ethical disaster. Bling may be considered cool in some quarters, but the destruction to the environment and associated conflicts means that many people who buy gold and diamonds thinking of them as luxurious, aspirational adornments, are in fact helping to enslave and exploit people in areas where they are mined.

The Kimberley Process was launched in 2003 and is a voluntary scheme of warranties which is supposed to track each diamond from source to point of sale. Some dispute its effectiveness, Campaign Global Witness has recently reported that the safeguards "were not having the desired effect and that diamonds were still being smuggled out of war-torn Côte d'Ivoire via Mali". Soho-based jewellers, Jess James claims on its website that certification for diamonds can easily be bought: "Anyone that deals with West Africa knows full well that anything can be bought and Kimberly Certificates are no different." Because of the wide-scale corruption it has found in the international diamond industry, Jess James has since 2004 been setting beach diamonds which have a minimal impact on the environment, collected from sea beds. "These boats are ecologically sound in their collecting methods as they vacuum the sea bed; the diamonds, by virtue of their high density, can be separated out and the sand returned back to within metres of where it was raised - causing minimal disturbance to the crustacean sea life."

Cafod has led the way in investigating the damage gold mining does and its report, Counting The Cost of Gold finds that gold mining is responsible for huge amounts of toxic waste and forced evictions. "According to Oxfam America, one mine in Papua New Guinea generates 200,000 tons of this cyanide-laced waste rock per day. The disposal of such vast amounts of waste is often highly problematic. It is stored in reservoirs (which can leak), or dumped in rivers, lakes or the sea. According to the American research institute World Watch, when a dam in Romania containing such waste broke in 2000, some 100,000 cubic metres of waste water containing cyanide and heavy metals made its way into the Danube, killing around 165 tons of fish." Takes the shine off gold a bit doesn't it?

Greg Valerio's Cred jewellery label is selling certified fair trade gold and platinum wedding bands, which it produces via partnerships with small-scale mining communities and cutting and polishing co-operative workshops. The British Jewellery Association claims it is committed to ethically sourced diamonds, but even if you manage to identify a diamond as conflict-free, it doesn't mean you can buy it with a clear conscience. It's been estimated that 90% of the world's diamonds are cut and polished in India where labour is cheap and, according to the International Labour Organisation, at least 20,000 children in India are employed in the industry regularly working 12-14 hours a day.

Cafod: www.cafod.org.uk/unearthjustice

Cred: http://www.cred.tv/

International Labour Organisation: http://www.ilo.org/

words: Marian Buckley