Gemstone Dealer, Jim Fiebig On The Work In Madagascar
Introduction:
Jim Fiebig (www.sellmorecolor.com) has been a passionate advocate for the artisanal mining sector for many years. Here, he describes the current situation in Madagascar, and his work in that country.
This post first appeared on the Madison Dialogue list serve, which elicited a response from Mohamed Mnzava, who questioned his work. Jim then responds to Mohamed Mnzava. I followed this up with an interview with Mohamed and a comment from another gemstone dealer.
This post is the first in a series of five consecutive posts covering the issue of artisanal gemstone mining from a macro perspective of two people in the field. ~ Marc Choyt, Editor.
JIM FIEBIG’S ORIGINAL POST:
I am very honored to be working with the Madison Dialogue group. I have been involved in gemstones and jewelry all of my life. In 2005 I sold my retail jewelry store in Sturgis, MI to move to Madagascar and start a gemstone tourism business so American jewelers could buy gemstones directly from the Malagasy people who so sorely need the revenue.
www.gemstonetrips.com
At that time most of the world’s sapphires were being smuggled out of this gem rich nation with little benefit going to the miners or the government. With pressure from World Bank and a dedicated group of American and Malagasy people, including another Madison colleague, Tom Cushman, these export laws were re-written to facilitate legal export with 2% duty on rough and no duty on “tourist” quantities of polished gems.
The Project Governance Resource Mineral started educating hundreds of Malagasy in gemology and gem cutting to add value to this incredibly well intentioned endeavor. This has served the country well for three years until an exceptional Emerald crystal was deceptively exported.
http://biz.yahoo. com/ap/080729/ hong_kong_ emerald_dispute. html?.v=1
The return of this piece has become a matter of national pride and the once pro-business President Ravalomanana has reacted by shutting down all gem related exports. This knee-jerk reaction has only served to instantly end any income for the thousands of artisinal miners all over Madagascar.
I just had seven clients there last month and while they did buy a great deal of rough and some cut stones, the rough now resides in my Madagascar bank safe deposit box until we can get the stones out legally.
Our travels to Ilakaka illustrated the dire situation. At mine sources that had at least 140 men working, there was no activity. In 8 years, I have never seen as much abject poverty in this gem mining town. We always see major corporations as the enemy of the arisinal miner but this and other experiences have reminded me that the countries and their greedy leaders are often the greatest evil.
