FCI encourages our customers to carefully consider your source when purchasing diamonds and when a European-cut or old mine-cut diamonds is available for purchase, why not limit your exposure to blood diamonds by taking a stand against these globalization atrocities.

Rough diamond global trade regulation was thought to have the power to curtail the ‘diamond wars’. Significantly contributing to peace and consequently a decrease in Africa’s underground diamond economy, the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme was the culmination of three years of governmental, non-governmental and industry discussions.

By 2004, it become obvious that regulation alone wouldn’t improve either economic or developmental problems. For 75 years life hadn’t changed much for approximately 1.3 million artisanal diamond miners in Africa, including many children.

In 2005, a development initiative by the name of Diamond Development Initiative (DDI) was created in the hope of paralleling the Kimberley Process, co-hosted by Partnership Africa Canada and Global Witness who met with De Beers in London. After four years in suspended opposition, attempting to bring the diamond industry, civil society and governments together around a complex agenda was a challenging accomplishment, however the DDI consequentially emerged, learning respect and understanding from both perspectives, agreeing on the necessity for long-term, sustainable peace.

In 2006 however, the DDI was incorporated as a nonprofit charitable organization, receiving grants from Sweden, the Tiffany Foundation, the Canadian government and several diamond industry leaders. In March, Dorothee Gizenga was appointed DDI’s first executive director, establishing executive offices in Ottawa in 2008.

To date, the DDI has established a comprehensive set of ‘Standards & Guidelines’ for artisanal diamonds produced in Sierra Leone with a second set of guidelines for the Congo nearing completion, including the termination of child miners. Responsible for Web sites with detailed information on international artisanal mining in both English and French, the DDI has been supported by both De Beers and the JCK Industry Fund, which is presently in the process of establishing global standards for ‘development diamonds.’ With a new perspective as to how artisanally produced diamonds, perhaps 15% of diamond supply, might contribute to both national and community development, the DDI today is focusing on the organizational, social, environmental and economic problems that diamonds present.

PRADD will assist local government leaders and citizen groups to better understand shortcomings in the current fiscal systems, and to address such measures through constructive engagement of national government representatives on practical reform measures.

This video details the problems faced by diamond miners working with alluvial diamonds in the Central African Republic, and the challenges of affirming property rights at the grass roots level. The video briefly summarizes the 8-step process PRADD developed to translate customary rights into statutory rights. The process combines community development techniques to identify, organize, and motivate miners with GPS devices to precisely locate the mining claims.

The Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development Project (PRADD) is a USAID-funded pilot program designed to improve the lives of diamond miners and their communities by developing methods to achieve clear, secure, and publicly acknowledged rights to land and resources. The methodology developed by PRADD helps miners to affirm their customary property rights claims, providing them a measure of protection they never had before. It also offers a way to improve compliance with the Kimberley Process, which was developed to trace a diamond’s origin to ensure that it was not used to fund violence. Two videos were made to show government officials, professionals working with the Kimberley Process and others involved in Land Tenure and Property Rights how the process works.

U.S. foreign assistance has always had the twofold purpose of furthering America’s foreign policy interests in expanding democracy and free markets while improving the lives of the citizens of the developing world.? If this is so, I ask, how have countries with the most valuable resources become the poorest on earth with intermittent warring and why did the countries intent on imperialism and globalization let this happen? Did we allow the corporations to become too powerful? Did you know that in the year 2000, of the world’s 100 largest economic entities, 51 were corporations and 49 were countries?

Through its communications platform and standard setting activities, FJA will function as a driving force for consumers, making ethically and fairly traded jewelry the only moral choice. It will support jewelers by connecting them with the source of their material and enabling them to see the social, environmental and market advantage of providing ethical products.

According to Greg Valerio, one of the co-founders of the organization, ‘As a starting point, jeweler brands must not lose sight of the simple fact that traceability and transparency are the foundational bedrock upon which any ethical scheme must be judged. If you don’t know where your material comes from, you are morally compromised.’

In addition to supporting jewelers and brands that source in a traceable, transparent manner, FJA will provide the world’s first published and electronic ethical and jewelry manual and education materials to all jewelers and jewelry businesses. It will also provide lecture materials to jewelry students.

FJA will host campaigns to support the rights of indigenous people, communities and small-scale miners affected directly or indirectly by unjust situations involving mining. The network noted that it will be highly focused, supporting only those that it can impact by utilizing social media, its established network of suppliers, ethical jewelers, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the press, as well as by conducting action campaigns on the ground.

FJA is currently supporting the rights of small-scale Inuit ruby miners to mine, own, transform and sell rubies from Greenland without prosecution or marginalization at the hands of the Denmark-run Bureau for Mines and Petroleum and neocolonial business interests.

Recognizing that small-scale mining strengthens communities and has the potential to redeem economies in the third world, FJA will also support mining projects enabling miners and their products to reach fair trade certification. The network explained that it will provide financial support, scoping studies and advice from qualified professionals; liaise with locals; offer practical help in launching the projects; and encourage public support through the provision of up-to-date information via the press.

FJA was launched in the U.K. and U.S. by fair trade jewelers and ethical jewelry advocates Valerio and Marc Choyt of Reflective Images in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In the U.K. only, the FJA will operate within the charitable trust of The CRED Foundation.