Responsible Diamond Sourcing

By Peggy Jo Donahue The Issues | Sourcing Diamonds Responsibly | Addressing Sales Concerns Until a decade ago, most jewelry makers, designers, and consumers knew little about where the diamonds used in jewelry were sourced. They were probably aware that the most famous mines were in Africa, but the specific countries were rarely discussed. And the way diamonds were distributed to the trade made it almost impossible to know more: A few large mining companies such as De Beers gathered together diamonds from all sources, then sorted them by quality, size, and other factors—but not by their place of origin. Origin mostly began to matter after horrific stories surfaced about wars in certain African countries being fought over control of diamond resources. Films such as the 2006 Blood Diamond, which depicted the human misery of diamond mining in Sierra Leone, brought further attention. More recently, human rights abuses in certain diamond mining areas of count...