Tag Archives: Global Witness

UK Jewellery Trade Organisations Advocate “Diligence” in Diamond Purchases

Posted on December 7, 2011 | Leave a comment

For release 7th Dec  2011

With yesterdays announcement that Global Witness has removed itself form the Kimberley Process, UK jewellers are seeking answers to why contentious diamonds remain at the forefront of news as they enter the critical festive retail period.

The decision in November by the KP to allow exports of diamonds from certain mines in Zimbabwe rocked the international diamond industry. UK jewellers expressed concern over the decision and subsequently many have sought more assurances from their dealers on the provenance of the goods being imported.

Global Witness were among the founding bodies of the KP and their departure from the dialogue marks a significant shift in confidence that the KP may not be ‘fit for purpose’ in current global politics.

In May of this year, Global Witness met with the UK’s largest trade bodies; the National Association of Goldsmiths who represent over 2500 jewellery retailers and the British Jeweller’s Association, who’s 1000 members belong to manufacturing, trade and wholesale within the industry. The NAG and BJA formed a specialist Ethics Committee in March 2011, tasked with consulting between key UK and International trade and NGO bodies, as well as with the UK Government.

Global Witness gave valuable information about the current crisis in Zimbabwe and discussed the Kimberley process objectives. They expressed frustration that finding representatives of the artisanal miners was proving particularly difficult and it was clear that ensuring a balanced outcome for the diamond miners of Zimbabwe was going to be extremely challenging.

However, despite the withdrawal of Global Witness from the KP, the Ethics Committee maintains that the UK jewellery industry will continue to seek resolutions from the World Diamond Council on the matter and in the meantime recommend jewellers and retailers remain cautious about the origin of their diamonds.

Michael Hoare, CEO of the National Association of Goldsmiths said

“It’s important to retain consumer confidence in British made jewellery .The creation of the Ethics Committee is a commitment to effecting positive changes for the jewellery industry and ensuring that a regular dialogue between all parties is maintained”.

The BJA and NAG have long advocated their memberships take every reasonable precaution in diligently checking the provenance of the diamonds used in British made jewellery. Today, the Ethics Committee announced an evaluation of the  UK response to the recent developments and will assess concrete steps which UK jewellers can take to protect their integrity from the Zimbabwe stones which have attracted the ‘Blood Diamonds’ label by KP critics .

The value of understanding the intricate supply chains in UK jewellery manufacture extends into all aspects of diamonds, coloured gems and precious metals.

In recent months the Ethics Committee have met with the Fairtrade Foundation and the London Bullion Market Exchange, where current standards to ensure best practice in both newly mined and refined or recycled gold were examined.

Simon Rainer, CEO of the British Jewellers Association said

“The UK industry is at the forefront of traceability; working towards the creation of recognisable standards to define transparency in jewellery supply chains”.

-Ends-

Notes to Editors

 

CONTACT VIVIEN JOHNSTON    vivien@fifibijoux.com, 07789224705

 

The British Jewellers’ Association has united with The National Association of Goldsmiths to support access to ethical supply chains and chain- of- custody objectives for their members.

 

Realising that many small businesses are faced with substantial challenges when trying to break down the components of their supply chains and assess ethical credentials, the BJA and NAG have committed to take the lead for UK jewellery manufacturers and retailers.

 

The committee wish to build a concrete policy and guidelines that meet the high standards required for responsible and transparent  trading in the UK market

Both associations have connections with RJC and CIBJO and are mindful of their contribution to the debate, but act in the best interests of their respective members.

The NAG & BJA‘s ethics working committee will assess the feasibility of a system of auditable standards covering the following areas:

 

  • Mining
  • Metals
  • Diamonds
  • Gemstones
  • Manufacturing
  • Retailing.

The Ethics Committee will tackle each field and call on experts for an open and frank information exchange in order to develop a robust system in the UK jewellery industry. Vivien Johnston, founder of ethical jewellery brand Fifi Bijoux, has been appointed to steer the project.

Greg Valerio, winner of the Observer Ethical Campaigner Award for his work to bring Fair Trade gold to market, has pledged his support for the realisation of the standards.

Photos of  Simon Rainer, CEO of BJA; Vivien Johnston; founder of Fifi Bijoux and Chair of Ethics Committee; Michael Hoare, CEO of NAG, Greg Valerio, founder of CRED Jewellery & Fair Jewellery Action, available on request.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Blood Diamonds, Diamonds, Press Releases

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

British Jewellery Associations in progressive dialogue with NGO’s

Posted on August 9, 2011 | 2 Comments

Ethics Committee National Association of Goldsmiths & British Jewellers Association

05/08/11

For Immediate Release

N.G.O’s Join Forces to Present Key Demands for Industry

Four leading NGO’s have presented their recommendations for action to the NAG & BJA Ethics Committee.

In a no holds barred session Global Witness, WWF, PACT and Earthworks came together in a round table discussion about the challenges the jewellery sector currently faces. Issues raised included the fragile state of the Kimberley Process, new standards on conflict minerals and the lack of representation for artisanal miners in the global drive to meet demands for transparency.

The NGO’s discussed their work on the ground, government policies and the benefits and pitfalls of the various emerging initiatives which aim to improve social and environmental standards for gold and diamond supply chains.

Global Witness gave valuable information about the current crisis in Zimbabwe and discussed the Kimberley process objectives. Global Witness has engaged with many artisanal miners, though explained the difficulty in finding representatives of the miners and found that those involved in the trading of the diamonds tended to have a stronger voice.

Ethics committee member and Fairtrade Gold campaigner Greg Valerio said that;

‘Artisanal miners remain marginalised from all the debates about the elimination of conflict from the mineral trade and the unintended consequences of all these OECD & WGC initiatives will be no change for the artisanal miner, which will mean no change in the conflict minerals story’

He also raised hard-hitting questions for the most vulnerable developing countries on the robustness of the enforcement of their conflict free mineral policy as businesses rush to meet compliance for conflict free supply chains without the inclusion of artisanal miners in the delivery of the changes.

WWF, whilst not currently engaged in mineral policy, offered the benefit of experience from other sectors such as the cotton industry and agriculture, where the successful creation of  a chain of custody for supply chains have been implemented. Patrick Laine thanked the roundtable for their open approach and for inviting the NGO’s to attend. He commented ‘The complexity of the issue is not a valid reason to avoid solving it’ and suggested that any actions agreed by the committee should be inclusive and mainstream; and ‘not eco-niche’ in their approach.

Karen Hayes of PACT described their work on the ground to implement traceability of ‘bagging and tagging’ gold which was compliant with conflict-free standards. PACT has also created local communication and consultation committees, with their focus on practicality, social, health and safety issues in mines.

The committee also heard from No Dirty Gold campaigners Earthworks, who joined the conversation from the USA via conference call. Earthworks created the Golden Rules for jewellers and have most recently been campaigning against the proposed Anglo Gold ‘Pebble’ copper and gold mine in Bristol Bay, Alaska.

Simon Rainer of the BJA commented ‘It was a hugely informative and interesting meeting’.

Vivien Johnston, who moderated the session, said “These are exceptionally complex issues. The collective experience and knowledge the NGO’s bring to the table is vital for developing a well-rounded perspective in order to tackle the challenges our industry is facing’.

The National Association of Goldsmith and British Jewellers Association Ethics Committee are now reviewing the recommendations made and plan to address these in future round tables with other key parties within the trade and also the banking sector.

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Conflict Gold, News, Press Releases

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Die By The Bullet Or Die By Starvation. Is That The Stark Choice?

Posted on March 2, 2011 | Leave a comment

PRESS RELEASE

 

March 1, 2011.

 

North Kivu Province, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

 

Die By The Bullet Or Die By Starvation: Is That The Stark Choice?

For the first time, people of the Congo speak out about The Dodd Frank Bill that aims to stop the sale of conflict minerals into the USA.

Leaders of cooperatives representing 20,000 small scale miners and their extended community of 100,000 people, lend their support to the Dodd Frank Bill, which aims to prohibit the use of rare metals and minerals that fund conflicts in the Great Lakes region of Africa.   However, they want to caution the SEC on listening to campaign organisations, most notably Global Witness, who do not represent the ordinary people in the region effected by this piece of legislation.  They request an opportunity to speak, face to face with the SEC in order to present the reality on the ground, and find a way to implement a time table with the community that will promote peace and prosperity in the eastern DRC.

Below is the letter that has been submitted by the community directly to the SEC today, March 1st.   We present it to you in its unedited format.

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

Submission to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on the Regulatory Initiatives Under the Dodd-Frank Act

 

We, the representatives of the mining cooperatives COCABI, COMIMPA and COMIDER, the only three legal mining cooperatives in North Kivu representing 20,000 artisan miners, and with the full support of,

The Governor of North Kivu;

The national and provincial members of parliament elected in Walikale Territory;

The Administrator of Walikale Territory;

The President of the Walikale Civil society;

Various other cultural, civil and church organisations;

Would like to make the following statement to Unites States of America Securities and Exchange Commission in response to the sections on Conflict Minerals in the Dodd Frank Bill: -

1.     We want to bring to your attention that we the local population in the areas that will be the most effected by your proposed legislation Dodd-Frank Bill, have not been consulted in all these times.

2.     We have been suffering greatly for many years and would like to ask you to help in a constructive way to improve the lives of the local population in the region of Walikale, and the rest of the DRC and not to punish us further.

3.     We thank our Government [DRC] for the efforts made during the resent ban on mining in the three Eastern Provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Maniema to improve the situation. We know how difficult it is for the government and we thank the President for his courage to implement the ban and for the consultation with us and the local population and the commitments given to us to help improve the situation.

4.     This ban was very difficult and hard for us the local population, but we are very happy to see the positive effect it already had.

a.      It had shown us as local mining cooperatives the benefit of working together.

b.     The government have listen to many of our issues and have agreed to make many changes to protect and improve the situation of the local artisanal miners.

5.     Now that our government has promised to lift the ban we are looking forward to work together with our partners to improve the lives of the local population.

6.     We are aware that you plan to put an embargo in place from 1 April 2011 for all minerals that don’t have traceability.

7.     We are supporting you very well in what you want to achieve and thank you for all your effort, but for us if we cannot start to work when the ban is lifted we will starve. We cannot continue to suffer any longer. Do we now have to choose between dying by a bullet or starving to death?

8.     We are also afraid that smuggling of minerals will increase – the people have to eat – and that all the positive effect of the current ban will be removed. It is important to now quickly build on the positive effect of the ban.

9.     We have been working now for three years on a solution with our international partner, Oakridge Mining Solutions to develop our area and to improve the situation of artisanal miners.

10.  Through this we have created a model – Fairmining – that we will implement when the mining ban are lifted. We will be very happy to give you full detail of this model that is based on social development, environmental development, mineral traceability and compliance and ethical and fair-trading. We are committed to work with ITRI with regards to mineral traceability for Cassiterite and Coltan and have already made preparations to extend this to the area of gold.

11.  We have also formed a local Congolese mining company Kalminco (www.kalminco.com) where we the local cooperatives are the shareholders. We are planning to develop this company into a small-scale mining company and it is our vision to turn it into a large mining company owned by the local people.

12.  We ask your support and help in implementing this model and to please engage with our partner and ourselves to make sure we find a solution that will last.

13.  We ask you to support our efforts and to give us time to implement such a program for all areas under the control of our cooperatives.

14.  We have been made aware of statements by foreign organisation, with specific reference to Global Witness and Enough Project, that we don’t agree with and we ask you to have caution when using these organisation as the primary source for legislative decisions that could effect the whole of Central Africa, without deeper consultation with the local population.

15.  We want to bring to your attention that neither of these, nor any other organisations have engaged with us to any real extend and that they do not understand the reality and complexity of the situation.

16.  We have been made aware of a situation where Enough Project are asking people not to buy computers because the minerals in them are from our region. We do not agree with this and are not supporting any such actions.

17.  Although it is a very difficult process for us, we believe that these problems should be resolved by legal and constitutional ways and not by uncoordinated efforts by a partially informed general public.

18.  We thank you once again for all you good work and look forward to your response.

19.  We would also like very much to come and present our situation in person to you.

For COMIMPA                                                      Axel Mutia, General Manager

For COMIDER                                          Kalinda Mukombo Emmanuel, President

For COCABI                                                       Idrissa Assani, Vice-president

Contact detail

 

For Cooperatives

Axel Mutia                   Mobile +243 853129865

Email axelmutia@yahoo.fr

For Fairmining and Oakridge Mining Solutions

Greg Valerio                  Mobile +447973768101

Email greg@gregvalerio.com

 

# # #

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Fairmining, Press Releases, Responsible Mining, Small-Scale Mining

Tagged , , , , , ,