World of Good Blogger Calls for Conflict free Diamonds

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I appreciate the efforts of this blogger to expose the issues, but the post is written as if fair trade diamonds already exist. They do not.

Some diamonds fields are a hundred square miles with small scale artisanal miners picking away and smuggling their goods where they can be sold. No one can really control smuggling at this point. The diamond fields are vast and can be found in many different countries. If Africans in the mining sector were paid what the diamonds are really worth in an open market, then perhaps smuggling would not be such an appealing solution to struggling artisanal diamond miners.

If War-Mart is to receive “fair trade” diamonds, it will probably mean that the efforts of TransfairUSA will be focused around the large scale mining sector. Small scale artisanal diamond miners may in that case be bypassed.

Read the post.

http://www.worldgoodsgb.com/2008/02/fair-trade-diamonds-and-wal-mart.html

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