Facing the Conundrum
By Greg Valerio, Staff Writer, fairjewelry.org
“I sit on a mans back, choking him and making him carry me and I assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his suffering by all means, except by getting off his back”.
~ Leo Tolstoy
Ian Smillie’s resignation from the Kimberley Process (KP) at the end of May 2009 came as a shock to me as it did to most people on the outside of the process. I have met Ian on a number of occasions and had been impressed by his commitment to the jewellery industry, as well as his passion for reform.
His involvement in Partnership Africa Canada and the Kimberley Process has helped to revolutionize the jewellery industry as well as the political and corporate culture that surrounds our work.
Ian started as a teacher in Sierra Leone in the sixties and demonstrated concern for the plight of the people throughout his career, including the environmental and labour conditions of the small miners.
Fortunately for all of us, he will continue to work with the Diamond Development Initiative, which addresses the plight of the million and a half miners in the diamond sector who were most impacted by the blood diamond tragedy. Unbeknownst to many of us, even today, many small diamond diggers live in some of the poorest areas of the world where they continue to work under abhorrent labor and environmental conditions.
Apart from the shock of losing Ian’s advocacy which brought a level of trusted integrity to whatever he was involved in, it was depressing to hear Ian’s reasons for his actions.
In his resignation letter critiquing Kimberley, Ian wrote, “Perhaps worse, we refuse to deal with human rights abuse in alluvial diamond mining, surely a fundamental issue for a body that aims to stop ‘blood diamonds’. For every hour we spend dealing with issue’s of pro-forma KP compliance, we devote four hours to argument about why and how to avoid real issues. We patrol county roads for jay-walkers and ignore serious crime in our own backyard”.
Honestly, I was disheartened. Although I personally have not been uncritical of KP and some of its short comings, I did not realize it was falling this short. It would appear our addiction to bureaucracy is endemic and almost pathological. If I may be so bold as to quote U2, “How can we stand next to the truth and not see it”.
It is now a reality that the proverbial jeweller’s loupe of human rights and environmental justice are firmly focused on our industry.
Under The Ethical Loupe
Unfortunately, Ian’s resignation only points to a small facet in the complex supply chain that is the basis for the jewelry business. The jewelry sector is quite vulnerable.
In recent years, since Kimberley, we have seen the introduction of ‘The No Dirty Gold Campaign’ and the UK based CAFOD’s “Unearth Justice campaign,” looking at the negative impact of large-scale gold mining on local communities and their environment in the DRC and Honduras. Human Rights Watch similarly have focused on human rights abuses in the gold supply chain in DRC and the link to Swiss refiners.
Pakistan Emeralds and the Taliban, Greenland Rubies and Danish Colonialism, Burma Rubies and USA and EU boycott’s, mercury in the Amazon basin, cyanide spillage’s in the Danube, child labour in gemstone cutting, in truth the list could go on for ever with all the above issues having happened in just the last 10 years. The jeweller has every right to feel under assault from all sides. In fact, if you are of a more conservative disposition, you would see an international conspiracy out to get the small guy who is purely trying to make a living.
Life however, rarely turns out as easy as we would want. It is not easy being a jeweller at this time. These issues are not simple; they are in fact complicated and interrelated. A Ruby and Diamond engagement ring sounds simple enough but the supply chain and the source can take you on a journey into the heart of darkness.
Conrad understood that the physical journey we may take to procure the product is a metaphor for the inner journey we must also take. If the ruby comes from Bangkok, it is almost certainly from Burma, regardless of the boycott. Emeralds in Jaipur may or may not come from Northern Pakistan, and so the story goes.
For the civil society campaign groups, our industry is an easy target. Full of brands with a very high consumer profile, huge brand collateral, some of the biggest transnational corporations and easily some of the biggest marketing budgets in the business. Mining is by definition the most environmentally damaging industry in the world and we are all 100% dependent on it. We trade in luxury and that luxury is not free. The price is more than just money. This makes us a legitimate target for every interest group going — whose activists by the way will all wear our product. Hopefully, I will have sold it to them.
This conundrum has vexed me for many years. How do I really face my increasingly socially conscious consumer and speak with integrity and honesty?
As many readers of this column will know, I am a firm believer and advocate of fair trade. However, I am also deeply realistic. Fair trade will not solve all the problems we face as jewellers, as they are bigger than one market solution. Whether you are big or small, whether you are pro Responsible Jewellery Council or not, whether you are pro fair trade or not, one guiding principle will see us through the potential quagmire and into a brighter future.
The Principle of ‘Physical Traceability’.
It’s a simple idea that says with everything you sell, you know it’s source. If you sell gold brought from Cooksons, you will not know where that gold originated from. It could have come from a very responsible large scale miner; it could have come from a very irresponsible miner having a negative impact on glaciers in the Andes.
What we are now attempting to do here is no different than what other sectors have done, such as the organic food industry, which takes advantage of a consumer that is more and more concerned about the effects of his purchases. Jewellery is particularly vulnerable to sourcing issues because of its highly symbolic value. No one wants to wear a wedding ring made from dirty gold!
The way the system is set up through refiners, traders, bankers etc., screens out the provenance of the gold. Even Michael Rae from RJC has conceded they will not certify the supply chain, so in effect you can be a certified member of RJC and still be selling dodgy goods.
This is I believe the single biggest issue we as an industry will have to act upon. Physical traceability. This is the framework that all the ethical, fair trade, corporate responsibility issues and debates must take place in. To ignore it is to fart in the wind.
Is it possible? Yes it is. Everything is possible. To ignore the issue of traceability leaves us all very vulnerable. The question is, ‘Do we have the political and personal will to tackle it? And if so how do we move forward?’ Now, there is a real question that we will have to tackle in another article.
