[SunshinePearls]

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[icevic]

Buy Canadian diamonds!

Nobody gets hurt, everyone is paid a fair wage, and most importantly, it provides jobs for our Northern native peoples who are struggling to keep their culture, traditions, and way of life alive in their remote Arctic homeland. The Canadian diamond industry is a terrific story that is helping the very people in Canada who need it the most.

[Valeria101]

Just adding a couple of bits to the story:

Recently, a thread about precisely this topic run into some rather interesting Canadian stories on GemologyOnline:

LINK

There were a couple more like this on the topic.

A DTC survey found only a small % of buyers aware (i.e. let alone concerned) about the bloody issue. Would have taken that with a grain of salt 'cause of the source, but the movie came and went and already failed to have an sizable impact. At least, none newsworthy.


Cute, no? NOT a promotional piece for the Kimberly process, but could well be, I would think. ['Vero' pendant by BKK]





'Bet there are some dark issues about pearls too. And rubies, and any other precious bit starting at the bottom of the global food chain only to be made useful at the top. I'm not sure how that bit of fact sounds in a sale pitch - 'out of place' most likely. If not worse.

Just think of the reeking moral value of asking someone to pay extra for acting moral themselves (this once, for making a 'moral' shopping choice).

If it works, WTH: all is right in love and war and commerce and hopefully everyone is well aware of that already.

[pierrettedE]

ehmm, might not want to go there...

Bet there are some dark issues about pearls too...

The Pearl by John Steinbeck

nuff said ?

Must be representative of a few tragic stories that dot the history of natural pearl trading!

[Josh]

I read The Pearl like most of you have I'm sure. It's all about greed in my eyes. Greed does not have to be part of your pearl. I and a few others are producing black pearls with a clear conscious and respect for the environment and fellow humans. If you care about this stuff, ask to know the origin of your pearls, diamonds or anything else you value. Didn't know there were diamonds in Canada. Very cool.

[Valeria101]

Isn't that story over already ?

BBC. Liberia lifts diamond mining ban


Bloody Kimberly aside, does anyone else find the oodles of images with gem mining operations sporting ridiculous labor conditions a tad unsettling? I know they are supposed to show how far and wide professional gem buyers travel, how rare and laboured the stones are... but the story about the humans involved is anything but glamorous. The looks of large scale industrial diamond mining operations looks sanitized by comparison. Synthetic gems and cultured pearls seem to have a nicer social image, although...

[Casey.R]

We saw a show on television about diamonds funding war in Sierra Leone. I can't remember the title of it though. I think it may have been this one. http://www.dvdplanet.com/details.cfm?info=GEO075200. But there are quite a few. It was very graphic.

Some of the people that were brutalized during the war had to go back to mining again because they couldn't find any other work after the war.Of course the wages are pennies and some of them just work for meals.

With the Kimberley proccess diamonds from those mines like those aren't supposed to make it into the US ( and other places). But it's not possible to keep every one of them out.

[Caitlin]

The Pearl by John Steinbeck

That and the Black Pearl by Scott O'dell both use pearls as metaphors.

Too bad they both present the local peasants as so incredibly naive and without cultural context but the reasons for the stories are not about ethnology --or pearls...

BTW if you haven't read the Black Pearl, give it a spin.......it is a good story in spite of its flaws.

Maybe Douglas will comment on this... He has some excellent pages on the Yaqui pearl divers of yore which i recommend you go find on his website. They are well written and accurate depictions. Believe me, those pearl diving peasants on both sides of the Gulf of Cortez had strong tribal memberships and they knew their pearls.