Fair Trade Jewelry

Kim Poole, www.aurorawildlife.com has over 25 years of professional wildlife experience in the public and private sector throughout western Canada, with extensive experience in the Northwest Territories where diamond mining is taking place.

His work focuses on wildlife research & management, and wildlife habitat management and assessment.

I met him in British Columbia, where we discussed diamond mining issues. These follow up questions were sent via email.

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Tags: Spin, Transparency, CSR, Ethical Initiatives, Sustainability, Change Agents, Environment, Fair Trade Gems, Interviews, Mining, Ethics, Diamonds by Marc Choyt
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Here’s my best list of resources and suppliers. I will make additions to it as more information is passed to me. I put comments after those organizations that I know something about.

This list was drawn and expanded from the resource section my Ethical Jewelry Handbook, a free e-book available upon request.

RESOURCE LIST

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Tags: CSR, Transparency, Change Agents, Ethical Jewelry Handbook, Ethical Initiatives, Resources & Suppliers, Sustainability, Fair Trade, Environment, Ethics, Rubies, Madison Dialogue, Fair Trade Gems, Mining, Gold, Gem Lore, Platinum, Diamonds by Marc Choyt
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Introduction:

An article in the Journal Times from Racine WI discusses a local jeweler’s line of fair trade gemstones from Eric Braunwart’s Columbia Gem House, along with supporting comments from Steve D’Esposito from Earthworks.

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Tags: CSR, Ethical Initiatives, Fair Trade, Sustainability, Spin, Transparency, Rubies, Mining, Ethics, Change Agents, Fair Trade Gems by Marc Choyt
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Introduction:

Laurent Cartier asked me in the previous post how complete transparency is possible in your supply chain, apart from saying that somebody brought you a stone and you paid him a fair price.

Three models currently exist where we can have trusted transparency from the artisanal miner to the marketplace. Each of these scenarios involves a great deal of

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Tags: Transparency, CSR, Change Agents, F*R*E*, Fair Trade Gems, Editorial by Marc Choyt
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Introduction: This post is an ongoing discussion of fair trade issues in the gemstone sector. It was first posted on the Madison Dialogue list server. Laurent has worked on issues relating to artisanal mining in Madagascar and has studied global gem supply chains.

Midway through this writing, Laurent poses a question to me personally which I respond to in a companion post.

Laurent raises several critical issues around marketing, sourcing and spin that gets to the heart of why the fair trade gemstone market poses so many challenges to the jewelry sector.

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Tags: Transparency, CSR, Ethical Initiatives, Sustainability, Change Agents, Environment, Fair Trade Gems, Rubies, Mining, Ethics, Diamonds by Marc Choyt
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Introduction:

The ongoing marketing of “green” jewelry became a subject of conversation on the Madison Dialogue list serve. This list is composed of many of the leaders in the multi-sector initiative to clean up the jewelry supply chain.

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Tags: CSR, Spin, Ethical Initiatives, Fair Trade, Sustainability, Transparency, Change Agents, Madison Dialogue, Fair Trade Gems, F*R*E*, Ethics, Environment, Editorial by Marc Choyt
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Leaders in the forefront of manifesting true Ethical Jewelry, speak their minds about how and where the Jewelry Industry needs to go for truly ethically sourced jewelry.

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Tags: CSR, Spin, Ethical Initiatives, Fair Trade, Sustainability, Transparency, Change Agents, Fair Trade Gems, Interviews, Mining, Ethics, Editorial by Marc Choyt
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This article coming out of a new website from Tiffany Scholar, Sally Dickinson DeLeon as part of a project run by Saleem H. Ali, Ph.D. out of the University of Vermont gives an in depth portrait of the mining sector in Burma. It lends evidence to earlier posts that suggest what needs to be boycotted are Burmese government sponsored trade shows and outlets, not the entire ruby trade which artisan miners depend upon for support.

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Tags: Transparency, CSR, Fair Trade, Change Agents, Ethics, Rubies, Mining, Fair Trade Gems by Marc Choyt
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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.

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Tags: CSR, Transparency, Ethical Initiatives, Fair Trade, Sustainability, Change Agents, Environment, Fair Trade Gems, Diamonds, Madison Dialogue, Jewelry Manufacturing, Ethics, Editorial by Marc Choyt
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When we consider the notion of heart this Valentine’s day, it is easy, in our world where commodity is valued over humanity, to be too small in our hearts, falling into the illusion that our entire life is cast like a shadow against a cave wall.

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Tags: Fair Trade Gems, Editorial by Marc Choyt
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