What Does Ethical Mean to You?

[jordyonbass]

Hi,

I guess I think about ethical behavior in the mining industry mostly in terms of how gov'ts that control diamond and gem mines use the proceeds from that enterprise. In some instances the funds are used to perpetrate war/and/or atrocities on others. I would try to avoid buying gems from those areas. Certainly diamonds fall into that category. However , the Kimberly process is subverted, and everyone seems to be aware of this. So I don't know how you can really tell.

I read a book many yrs ago that enlightened me to how a dirt poor culture responded to their own poverty. It was called, "City of Joy", about life in Calcutta slums. As Baily and Gene have said, the people find their own happiness, just by being with one another. Of course, the people in the book did need help, as even in third world countries some poverty is unacceptable. I thought the book might be depressing, but instead, it was enlightening. ( a bit off topic, I know)

Annette

I actually think this is quite relevant, it relates to a post I made earlier in this thread about what can be considered ethical and the blurry lines that may exist. When it comes down to the morality and ethics of a situation, would the variable be the culture and/or country in which the situation is being questioned? And if so, what does that mean for us as consumers, wishing to do business with said foreign countries/cultures?

Do we accept that a product has been ethically produced on the say-so of the government of the country?
Do we need an international governing body, sanction or process for every industry that has international trading?
Do we make the industry's governing body work with the government of the country or have them as a governing body in the country of purchase?
Can it work both ways? i.e. can a merchant be protected from clients which may cause harm to them or their reputation?

There are governments which may misappropriate funds if they regulate the industry, I can see a conflict of interest there for governments in that regard. And sure the Kimberley process exists in the diamond world as an international sanction, but without having people watching all proceedings from A-Z then it's nearly impossible to know how or if it's effective. It would seem that we would have to not only look at it as a cultural/country difference, we would also need to look at the best way of ensuring the ethicality of the situation on a case by case basis.

We're a vicious species on this planet, we are one of few species where the evolutionary theory of 'Survival of the fittest' extends to how well you can manipulate other members of your species.

 

[digdeep]

So many GREAT posts in this thread. I feel it's one of the best threads I've seen here and wonder if it might be considered as a permanent topic for this forum. A closed thread and "food for thought" for everyone who purchases gems......not unlike the other topics we have.

One of the great things about a thread like this with in depth, personal and diverse posts; is that those who had not thought about these views will have a new experience the next time they look at or purchase a gem. And maybe that is the ethical basis of this thread......to not take anything for granted.

 

[arkieb1]

Hmmmm maybe they were thinking about all mining in the US ie minerals as well as gemstones. I don't know.... I have read some of your gemstone miners do send items to other countries having said that to get stones cut and polished in places like South America and Asia. I have seen a number (many of them recommended on here) that mine and cut and polish the stones themselves or that sell the rough to US cutters. Probably more so than in Australia, as your labour costs are cheaper than ours are and your minimum wage is much less than our is.

Now that I think more about this, I have sometimes seen Oregon sunstones in Jeff Davies' (based in Bangkok) eBay listings & I trust these really are Oregon sunstones, not ersatz ones like some Thai and Indian vendors peddle on eBay. And I imagine the Arizona peridots on the Gemfix site -- that aren't described as being cut by Andrew Gulij himself, in California, or as "American cutting" -- were probably cut in SE Asia. I wish all the vendors were as conscientious as, e.g., Dana Reynolds (Mastercut Gems); he affirmatively states if a listed stone was cut overseas should that matter to a prospective purchaser.

On the more general topic, here's the PDF of a thought-provoking, PowerPoint presentation that Vincent Pardieu
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/vincent-pardieu/2B/7A3/869
made at the 2011 International Colored Gemstones Association meeting in Brazil that was devoted to Ethical Mining and Fair Trade:
http://www.gemstone.org/images/files/congress2011/Vicent Pardieu.pdf

I've seen US mined Sunstone, US mined Sapphires and US mined Turquoise all cut/polished in Asia and sold as US gems..... I think when the general public buy from places like ebay or even from vendors at gemshows both big and small that do not cut and or mine their own stones really we have no way of knowing how it was mined and how or where it was cut, unless the vendor guarantees it was from x or y and even then we have to trust their word on this..... Just because something is mined in one part of the world doesn't mean it was cut there these days and as a result of this that means we might assume we are purchasing something "ethically" when really the truth may have become blurred.

 

[corundummy]

Thanks LD and ElleW.

I recognize that buying a gem is ecologically reprehensible, but I still have to put something sparkly on that finger. I think I'll gravitate towards countries that have more robust governmental control. Baring that, I'll probably go with an estate piece so the damage done can be shared amongst multiple owners

Whoa, "buying a gem is ecologically reprehensible"? That is a pretty dogmatic statement. Can you elaborate on how you reached that conclusion?
Thousands of people in third world countries do make a living wage in the gem industry, which keeps their families alive. Not a wage we would like to make, but a wage nonetheless.
If you are going to take the ecologically irreprehensible approach, take it all the way; don't buy imported clothes (good luck) and don't use paper, it's a huge waste of water. Pulling a gem out of a hole in the ground is harmless by comparison.
Traveling the world has taught me that there are many ways to do things. Not wrong, just different. When we try to measure the rest of humanity with our own set of rules, it doesn't work. If you want to know what is really going on in the world, go out into it, live in it.
The world is not a documentary.

I never claimed that other consumables weren't ecologically damaging, but I think mining is recognized to be particularly so. Also, I wouldn't rank gold/gems as quite as necessary as paper and clothes which are pretty much inelastic goods.

I understand that many people are employed by the gem industry in developing countries, but that doesn't make the process any more eco-friendly. Plenty of people worldwide are employed by petrol companies, but I wouldn't drive a Hummer just to support them

Sometimes there are right and wrong ways to do something. For example, rinsing sediments from mines away from river banks as opposed to directly into the river itself.


In this case I'm confident in saying that sedimenting a river isn't the "right" thing. My travels have shown me a number of beautiful places in the world that are badly scared from unsustainable natural resource use, I'd prefer not to contribute to that for the sake of jewelry if possible.

 

[PrecisionGem]

The Tar Sands oil mining in Alberta Canada is considered by many to be the largest environmental disaster on the planet. Gem mining pals in comparison to this. If you don't feel comfortable buying gems, then you sure as hell shouldn't buy any oil products.

The scar on the earth from the Tar Sands can be seen from space.

 

[austinj]

I think caring is caring, and people do the best they can do. It is almost impossible to live life now days without buying SOME oil products. Many people go to great lengths to avoid or reduce the use as much as possible. I think it's great to reduce any impact on the planet as much as we can. And there are steps one can make, such as not washing rocks directly in the rivers, to help out even just a bit. And yes if you have to pump water that's more resources but I think maybe the pump running would be better than an entire dead river. There is always something worse polluting and destroying the planet but every little bit we can do to save it helps!!

 

[PrecisionGem]

I think the picture of the workers washing gravel in the photo above is misleading. They are more than likely actually doing the mining, buy scooping up some gravel from the river bed, then sifting through it. Many of the gems are mined this way, so they are not introducing anything new into the river that didn't already exist there. Is stirring up the gravel a bit any different than native animals running through the water? If you have ever seen a few thousand wildebeests cross a river you can really see the water stirred up.

Of course it's difficult to live currently with out oil. But do we as a planet need to extract oil as is currently being done in the Tar Sands? Do we need to build the keystone pipe line to pump this oil down to the gulf? Currently, there is plenty of other oil that has a much smaller impact on the planet. But the Tar Sands is putting millions of dollars in the bank accounts of oil executives, where the people sifting through gravel in a stream bed is allowing them to maybe have a meal.

 

[corundummy]

The Tar Sands oil mining in Alberta Canada is considered by many to be the largest environmental disaster on the planet. Gem mining pals in comparison to this. If you don't feel comfortable buying gems, then you sure as hell shouldn't buy any oil products.

The scar on the earth from the Tar Sands can be seen from space.

I agree that the tar sands has an horrible environmental impact that probably exceeds that of any individual mine (although some gold mines are quite bad). I'm not sure how that makes it right to not take care of the environment when mining. I took that photo in madagascar and the sediments from the mining area could be seen clouding the river for miles downstream. Perhaps a massive herd of wildebeest could do the same thing, but I don't think wildebeest have the knowledge or ability to avoid doing so.

I think gemstones, particularly colored ones, are beautiful (as I assume most do in a colored gems forum ). My personal ethics for stones is to try to buy stones where care was taken when they were extracted to cause minimal harm to the surrounding environment. I feel this way in part because I've seen the impacts that even small scale operations can have. That might mean that the selection I can choose from is pretty limited and I recognize it'd be hard to be sure about the way the stone was extracted, but I'm still going to try when purchasing future stones.

 

[PieAreSquared]

I think the picture of the workers washing gravel in the photo above is misleading. They are more than likely actually doing the mining, buy scooping up some gravel from the river bed, then sifting through it. Many of the gems are mined this way, so they are not introducing anything new into the river that didn't already exist there. Is stirring up the gravel a bit any different than native animals running through the water? If you have ever seen a few thousand wildebeests cross a river you can really see the water stirred up.

Of course it's difficult to live currently with out oil. But do we as a planet need to extract oil as is currently being done in the Tar Sands? Do we need to build the keystone pipe line to pump this oil down to the gulf? Currently, there is plenty of other oil that has a much smaller impact on the planet. But the Tar Sands is putting millions of dollars in the bank accounts of oil executives, where the people sifting through gravel in a stream bed is allowing them to maybe have a meal.

+1
Aren't human lives just as important as the environment? Every human life is going to make some impact on this earth.

Corundummy: Maybe I am missing something but I don't see how stirring up sediment in a river to pick out gravel is "ecologically reprehensible". Of course you have the right to pick and choose where to apply your ethical standards, as do we all.

I used the examples of paper and imported clothes because over a lifespan the sheer volume of these items, regardless of how "necessary" they may be, will create a much larger impact on the planet than the "luxury items" of the half dozen gemstones that you may buy. Minimizing the consequences of the one while making a vocal stand for the other sounds more than a little hypocritical.

 

[digdeep]

I don't know the river biology and ecology in Madagascar......but sediment can cause all kinds of havoc in streams to the endemic environs.....including fish, mussels, plants (smothered), etc. In the Pacific NW this is a big issue for salmon that spawn and forests that were clear cut causing sediment to erode into the rivers. There are now environmental protections in place, but some private land owners want the money from the tree's and if you catch them later after they've logged............the damage is done. This isn't a case of applying ethics in one area......it spreads across any and all ecosystem's.......and ultimately affects humans as well.

The biggest harm in the last statement equating clothing to be the bigger problem is that you can always find something worse or more offensive. But that's a divide and ignore mentality. I doubt people on the gulf coast would agree with you. Or folks in Valdez. Do you look at one thing and ignore everything else? This is part of our problem with many natural resources.......we say it only takes this much water, or this much digging to reach the natural gas, tar sands, whatever and you NEED this. There is no factor built in to account for the REAL costs of these endeavors......whether they are air pollution, water pollution, climate change, earthquakes....( Oklahoma) even though the cumulative effect will at some point show itself...........

This is off the gem topic, but it bugs me when the straw horse argument of "oh, this is worse" is used to justify something that on it's own.......is not good and feeds into the bigger problems down the road. And this is what we are facing..........in gems, with oil, with a lot of human behavior and living on this planet. Never underestimate the power of small changes.........

 

[austinj]

Excellent post Digdeep! This is how I feel as well! You are a much better writer than me

 

[PieAreSquared]

"The biggest harm in the last statement equating clothing to be the bigger problem is that you can always find something worse or more offensive. But that's a divide and ignore mentality. I doubt people on the gulf coast would agree with you. Or folks in Valdez. Do you look at one thing and ignore everything else?"

Hmmm...unless I am completely misunderstanding you, I think you completely misread my post.

Nowhere did I claim that buying clothing is equal to the BP or Exxon Valdez disasters.

My point is, was and always will be that "small" things we do everyday add up to big things. I think you agree with that.

Clothing is not inconsequential. The pesticides and herbicides sprayed on cotton fields also run off into rivers. Synthetic fibers are not without consequence, as they come from petroleum. We have many options here.

To me the "divide and ignore mentality" you describe is epitomized by taking a self-righteous stance on one purchase while living the consumer lifestyle for the other 99.99% To me, that is "looking at one thing and ignoring everything else".

But maybe that is what you are saying too.

 

[PrecisionGem]

The Tar Sands oil mining in Alberta Canada is considered by many to be the largest environmental disaster on the planet. Gem mining pals in comparison to this. If you don't feel comfortable buying gems, then you sure as hell shouldn't buy any oil products.

The scar on the earth from the Tar Sands can be seen from space.

I agree that the tar sands has an horrible environmental impact that probably exceeds that of any individual mine.

"That probably exceeds that of any individual mine" is quite an understatement.

The Tar Sands operation in Alberta has deforested the boreal forest in an area the size of the state of florida. The tar sands operation contributes 40% of Canada's green house gas. 10,000 estimated waterfowl die each year when coming into contact with the waste water from tailings ponds.

I think that 6 women sifting gravel in a stream has a lot less effect than that. Man has put a his foot print on the earth, and in most cases is has been a destructive one, but to single out some very small scale mining, and saying you will not purchase a gemstone because of it, seems rather hypocritical, unless you live like some hippy in California. Sure gems are not a necessity by neither is coffee. The destruction of land to grow coffee dwarfs small gem mining.

 

[mochiko42]

The Tar Sands oil mining in Alberta Canada is considered by many to be the largest environmental disaster on the planet. Gem mining pals in comparison to this. If you don't feel comfortable buying gems, then you sure as hell shouldn't buy any oil products.

The scar on the earth from the Tar Sands can be seen from space.

I agree that the tar sands has an horrible environmental impact that probably exceeds that of any individual mine.

"That probably exceeds that of any individual mine" is quite an understatement.

The Tar Sands operation in Alberta has deforested the boreal forest in an area the size of the state of florida. The tar sands operation contributes 40% of Canada's green house gas. 10,000 estimated waterfowl die each year when coming into contact with the waste water from tailings ponds.

I think that 6 women sifting gravel in a stream has a lot less effect than that. Man has put a his foot print on the earth, and in most cases is has been a destructive one, but to single out some very small scale mining, and saying you will not purchase a gemstone because of it, seems rather hypocritical, unless you live like some hippy in California. Sure gems are not a necessity by neither is coffee. The destruction of land to grow coffee dwarfs small gem mining.

Agreed. I live in Asia, and most of the processed food here has palm oil in it. Palm plantations have caused a lot of pollution in Indonesia, the smoke from the fires literally darkens the sky for hundreds of miles. Most of the food and products in the city I live in comes from China. The footprint that modernization has left on China is horrifying. While we worry about the footprint of mining, how can you single it out if you can see the human and environmental impact of our 21st century life in China (see the polluted farmland, the cancers and asthmas and other sickness in the factory workers who make the iPhone and computers that we use to browse the Internet, the shoes we wear, the cheap electronics... Where do all your old electronics go? Many of them are sold for scrap and shipped back to China. Children, women, elderly people take them apart in landfills, they pick apart the copper wires for melting down... The list goes on. I think gems are only one of the non-essential luxuries of our modern lives that have a big impact. I'm not sure if it is helpful to compare or single out gemstone mining as worse than anything else, eg owning an iPhone... It's hard to quantify or compare, at least in my opinion.

 

[corundummy]

[/quote]

"That probably exceeds that of any individual mine" is quite an understatement.

The Tar Sands operation in Alberta has deforested the boreal forest in an area the size of the state of florida. The tar sands operation contributes 40% of Canada's green house gas. 10,000 estimated waterfowl die each year when coming into contact with the waste water from tailings ponds.

I think that 6 women sifting gravel in a stream has a lot less effect than that. Man has put a his foot print on the earth, and in most cases is has been a destructive one, but to single out some very small scale mining, and saying you will not purchase a gemstone because of it, seems rather hypocritical, unless you live like some hippy in California. Sure gems are not a necessity by neither is coffee. The destruction of land to grow coffee dwarfs small gem mining.[/quote]

There have been some incredibly destructive mines. For example, the Ok teki gold mine was dumping 80,000 tons of heavy metal contaminated sediment per day into the Ok Teki river in Papua New Guinea. This effected 1400km of riverine area and the water supply for thousands of people downstream. Papua New Guinea is an incredibly biodiverse area and the company operating this mine claimed that the sediment was the same as that found in the river and subsequently there was no environmental oversight for years. Even the Ok Teki mine may not be as bad as the oil sands and I'm sure most gem mining operations, which are small, can't compare.

None of this is my point at all. There are a variety of colored gems available and as I buyer I'm going to choose the stones that do the least environmental damage. It's not about comparing gems to tar sands oil or palm oil. It's about comparing gems to other gems and buying those where there is some modicum of environmental oversight on the mining process. To suggest that the only way to not be hypocritical about having an environmental focus is to be a "hippy" when buying something is strange. Would someone who only gave 5% of their money to charity they believed also be a hypocrite? I agree that man has put his footprint on the earth (every inch of it). If I can slightly reduce how big my footprint is by taking public transit to work or purchasing a gem from Montana instead of Sri Lanka that's something I'm going to do. If that only serves to keep 1 ton of sediment out of one stream in madagascar isn't that still better than nothing?

 

[PrecisionGem]

I think you are going to find similar type activities going on at sites mining Montana Sapphire or Oregon Sunstone. These typically involve digging and also washing.

You may want to look into Lake Baringo Rubies. Many of these stones are actually found on the surface of the ground after the rains, and picked up by local Masai.

Oregon Sunstone being mined....



Montana Sapphire mining....

 

[digdeep]

Not all sunstone mining is as extensive as that photo......in fact that's the 'worst' photo I've seen of sunstone mining. Most are smaller scale. It can also be as simple as surface hunting such as here: http://www.blm.gov/or/resources/recreation/site_info.php?siteid=110 A sunstone version of the Masai method..........

Some Montana sapphire miners are reusing water when washing the gravel, as well as not pouring the gray water directly back into fresh water sources.......... I'm not sure where the photo you posted was taken, but it doesn't appear to be near a water source and if that's the case this isn't as deep as most basements in Montana. Depends on where you draw the line with ethics..................but beware casting the same blanket on everyone when you start dealing with rock hounds.........

I'd consider that excavation a tornado/lightning shelter for at least a few head of cattle........

 

[PrecisionGem]

digdeep, I'm not trying to pass judgement on anyone for digging, just saying that just because the stone is sourced from the US doesn't mean there wasn't some disruption of nature involved. Man has been digging holes for thousands of years. Pretty much every building or house requires some king of a hole in the earth. I'm just not sure that if Corundummy buys a sapphire from Montana vs Sri Lanka or Africa he can be sure there wasn't some sort of impact in a negative way on the environment. I suppose he/she could always walk a beach in search for a pretty piece of "sea glass". I have heard of people finding a piece and having it faceted as it could have some sentimental value.

 

[digdeep]

I understand the clarification (for my sake) and agree with you.

 

[T L]

It is almost impossible to live life now days without buying SOME oil products.

Yes, products made with oil include all plastic, and plastic is in EVERYTHING, even carpet. I was trying to purchase new carpet once, and since oil prices rose, so did carpeting. Oil is also needed to transport everything a modern society needs for life. Unless you live in the jungle and hunt your own food with a spear, and have no electricity, gas or running water, you're going to be using oil products. Don't even get me started on the ethics of nuclear energy and the waste THAT produces.