What Is A Fair Trade Gemstone?
The issue of what constitutes a fair trade gemstone is complex and difficult
. Much of what appears in the jewelry case comes out of a holding dug up by a small miner with a shovel and pick. Dealers purchase rough (unpolished gemstone still in its matrix) and sell it to others who may export it for polishing. This may then be sold to a wholesaler who presents the gem at a show. Every stage of this process is highly price driven and competitive. By the time a gemstone finds its way to market, it becomes impossible to trace it back to its source.
Fair Trade gemstones offers an alternative to the commoditization chain. Consumer support for a vibrant fair trade gem market would help alleviate poverty and promote better environmental practices in the artisan small-scale mining (ASM) sector, which employs between sixteen and twenty million people around the world. Yet at this point, the precise understanding of what constitutes a fair trade gem is still very much in flux.
In an ideal world, a fair trade gemstone would be third party certified and come from a cooperative mining community. The supply chain for a fair trade gem would need to be entirely traceable and transparent, and rooted in a cooperative economic model that seeks to maximize benefit for producer communities.
Beneficiation, including polishing linked to jobs and community development, would also be crucial. Quality polishing operations are particularly expensive to set up, yet it is in the polishing that the value of a piece of stone can jump from ten to a hundred times.
The ideal described above does not exist. Instead, we have three different models emerging for fair trade gems: Co-op's, Companies, and Collaborators.
Co-operatives or associations of small scale miners. ASM co-ops ideally would be selling fair trade finished gems, similar to the Oro Verde project which sells fair trade gold from Colombia. One example of an organized group which is working on this is the Tanzania Women's Miners' Association.
Companies developing a fair trade process by owning the mine. Columbia Gems has pioneered this process at a ruby deposit in Malawi with their cutting tightly supervised in China. Columbia gems has also nearly completed its attempt to trademark the term, "fair trade gems" which has upset many people in the ethical sourcing community. A second example of this type of company is Ruby Fair, which sources out of a remote village in Tanzania and polishes in Dar es Salaam. Open Source Minerals in Madagascar also qualifies.
Individuals who contact the artisan miners directly and develop relationships that benefit the villages based upon a fair trade ethos. They personally finance exploration and shepherd the rough to cut through a factory which they know is ethical. Guy Clutterbuck's work with emeralds and aquamarine in Zambia qualifies.
At present, each of these situations benefits producer communities far more than the conventional gem trade, which is based on the model of squeezing the producer as much as possible to drive profits. Consumers and those in the jewelry sector who support of fair trade need to consider how we can support as many different types of scenarios that have higher ethical standards as possible.
by: Marc Choyt
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