The Treasure of the Sea – Perlas

One of the biggest regrets I have as a jeweller, is that over the years of campaigning for the introduction of Fairtrade Gold in to the jewellery supply chain, has been the fact I have had to neglect my love of the process for creating jewellery. As much as I have loved working with miners and learning about their lives and understanding their unique challenges, the need is always to link this process with a finished product. This is best achieved through inspired design of desirable and adorable product. This is as equally important as all the groundwork we have done at securing a better livelihood for the miner.

What links this mine to market experience is of course the ‘narrative’. I remember when I first started Cred Jewellery, Anita Roddick was very encouraging saying ‘Greg, whatever you do – never stop telling the story’. This was the best piece of business advice I ever received. Fairtrade Gold is now quite rightly, ‘the best gold story in the world’, but it has only just begun. For gold we need to work hard in the coming years to increase supply to meet the demand.

Personally my prayer is that there will always be a supply problem, as this will consistently drive the change on the ground. Yet equally we need to turn our attention to the other products we use in jewellery and to look to rediscover the authentic narrative.

Meeting Josh Humbert a pearl farmer from Tahiti at the Tucson Gem Show in 2010 was a key moment for me. We were at a symposium on ethical jewellery practices and Josh was given the floor to speak about his work as pearl farmer. Josh spoke as an impassioned environmentalist and as someone deeply concerned about the traditional Tahitian Black Pearl Industry. You could see he loved his livelihood, his appreciation of the sea, the aquatic eco-system and the sustainability of what he was doing had given him not only a good income, but as you can imagine a quality of life that many of us would cut off our right arms for.

Black Pearls from Kamoka

However that quality of his life and all those who worked there, was now under serious threat from rising sea levels, driven by climate change (climate change denial is driven by delusional emu’s, maybe we all need to begin to deny their existence and clearly based on their myopic logic the emu’s will all disappear) y perlas de agua dulce baratas de China que han inundado el mercado mundial de la joya a través del pasado 15 año. Era una historia no muy diferente de muchos otros que había oído hablar de que las economías tradicionales y formas de vida están siendo arrastrados en la corriente de la producción en masa y el producto al precio más barato posible.

Lo que me angustiado más sobre la historia de Josh fue que era una historia invisible. Debido a la ruptura intencional de la mina a la historia del mercado en nuestro comercio, casi todos los joyeros no habían oído hablar de este problema. De hecho todo lo contrario ha sucedido, la industria ha gozado en las perlas baratas que se bombea desde las granjas a base de químicos, independientemente de las graves consecuencias sociales y medioambientales de estas prácticas crean. [1]

Desde mi encuentro con Josh he pasado mucho tiempo (no lo suficiente como para ser honesto) mirar en el fondo de las perlas. Estos elementos sostenibles orgánicos naturales son exquisitos. Las perlas de Tahití han cautivado mi atención de una manera que no he experimentado desde CRED Jewellery produjo sus primeros anillos de bodas eco-Oro Verde de vuelta en 2003/4. su brillo, sus tonos de color, su individualidad se presta al proceso creativo maravillosamente. Y en el caso de las perlas de Josh el enfoque positivo que él y sus colegas han dado hacia sus métodos de cultivo ha demostrado que la joyería no es acerca de la gestión de riesgos como los responsables de la RSE nos quieren hacer creer. Se trata de crear un legado positivo a través de su propia creación.

En mi escritorio ahora tengo 26 Perlas de Tahití, wonderful rounds and semi-baroque’s speaking to me of possibility. The possibility of changing livelihoods, the possibility of transforming eco-systems and improving them, the possibility of new sustainable jewellery ranges and the personal possibility of indulging myself in the creative process again.

I am just beginning to discover pearls, their hidden truths and their potential to transform. After all the gates of heaven are made from pearls, the most sumptuous treasures of the sea.

For more information on Kamoka Pearls please visit http://www.kamokapearls.com/

Greg Valerio

Jeweller & Activist

Blog: www.gregvalerio.com

You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/gregvalerio

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