The Kimberly Process & Fair Trade Manufacturing Protocol
With the release of the movie "Blood Diamond", the world was thrust into a new awareness of the harsh and unethical conditions that can exist in parts of the world that mine diamonds and other precious gemstones. While there is no denying the existance of unethical gem production, the good news is that is represents a small percentage of the diamonds and gems available on the open market.
The Kimberly Process and Fair Trade Manufacturing Protocols have been created to assure consumers that the wonderful gems that the earth naturally provides travel from mine to store in a fair, ethical, and environmentally sound fashion.
About Fair Trade Manufacturing Protocol
Manufacturing jewelry using Fair Trade principles insures that the consumer is educated to understand the fair value of their purchase by including as much information as possible from te wonders of the people and culture where their precious colored gemstone was mined to the journey around the world that it traveled from mine to marketplace.
To the highest degree possible, jewelry manufacturers using Fair Trade principles use suppliers who can trace and document their sources to their origin in order to insure that fair labor conditions - where workers are treated fairly and benefit from their labor, environmental protection - where mine sites are retored when they are depleted, and full disclosure of any enhancement treatments that a stone has undergone are insured.
About The Kimberly Process
The Kimberley Process (KP) is a joint governments, industry and civil society initiative to stem the flow of conflict diamonds – rough diamonds used by rebel movements to finance wars against legitimate governments. The trade in these illicit stones has fuelled decades of devastating conflicts in countries such as Angola, Cote d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sierra Leone.
The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) imposes extensive requirements on its members to enable them to certify shipments of rough diamonds as ‘conflict-free’. As of November 2008, the KP has 49 members, representing 75 countries, with the European Community and its Member States counting as an individual participant.
Read more about the Kimberly Process...