Diamonds Move From Blood to Sweat and Tears

NY Times Article: "Diamonds Move From Blood to Sweat and Tears"

For those of you who have seen the recent Leonardo DiCaprio flic "Blood Diamond", you may be interested in reading this NY Times article on the current state of Sierra Leone after the civil war (which was depicted in the movie). I actually have not seen the movie yet, although I hear it is on our Netflix queue.

The article has a short audio link with slide photos that tell the same story in a more visual manner...it is worth checking out.

Some interesting quotes from the article include:

"...diamond mining in Sierra Leone remains a grim business that brings the government far too little revenue to right the devastated country, yet feeds off the desperation of some of the world’s poorest people."

"At the losing end are the miners here in Kono District, who work for little or no pay, hoping to strike it rich but caught in a net of semifeudal relationships that make it all but impossible that they ever will."

"A vast majority of Sierra Leone’s diamonds are mined by hand from alluvial deposits near the earth’s surface, so anyone with a shovel, a bucket and a sieve can go into business; and in a country with few formal jobs, at least 150,000 people work as diggers, government officials said."

"Some countries, like Botswana, whose diamonds lie locked deep underground, have been able to make their deposits a source of wealth through careful management and control. But countries like Sierra Leone, Congo, Angola and Ivory Coast, where diamonds wash up in rivers and often sit just a few feet below the surface, have struggled to manage what may be the world’s worst resource curse."

"Most had been dug by hand by workers in places like Koidu. But the paper trail does not reach all the way back to the miner, so there is no way to know how much a miner was paid. It is a gap, said Mr. Kanu, the diamond policy adviser, that can lead to the illusion that the problems brought to light by the civil war have been solved."

Upcoming Source Stories

Now that we've nearly wrapped up The Gold Link - full story is on The Gold Link archive link and multimedia photo essay will be up soon - we're looking ahead to future stories. Here are some sources we'd like to investigate. Please share your ideas for everyday consumer items with a source worth experiencing, whether good, bad, or ugly.

Chicken factories, northern Alabama, and polluted rivers

Digital TV, cellular, media satellites launched from oil rigs at the Equatorial Pacific

Cedar River wateshed, the source of Seattle's water supply

Wild salmon vs farmed-raise and the communities affected by both in Alaska

The source of hydro-power in British Columbia

Blue jeans from the Mississippi Delta to you via the Oregon prison system