Socially responsible gold mining urged

SANTIAGO, Chile

Two years ago, U.S.- based Earthworks and Oxfam America undertook an inter-national “No Dirty Gold” campaign.

The organizers are harnessing the power of the marketplace. More than 80 percent of gold mined annually is used for jewelry, and the two groups have organized letter-writing protests and a media campaign asking jewelers not to buy gold from mines that harm the environment and nearby communities.

Eight leading jewelers, including Zales, Cartier, Helzberg and Tiffany & Co., representing $6.3 billion in U.S. jewelry sales, have done just that. The response is putting significant pressure on the gold mining industry to reform amid worries about the threat of long-term environmental damage to water, land and livelihoods.

The growing conflict comes as mining companies scramble to take advantage of the bullish outlook for gold, whose price has more than doubled since 1999 and now hovers near $610 an ounce, the highest in 25 years.

“The gold mining industry says it wants to make changes,” said Keith Slack, a coordinator for the No Dirty Gold campaign. “But we have not yet seen a broad, systemic change on the part of industry to really commit themselves to doing things differently, such as disclosing all relevant information on environmental impacts or involving communities in monitoring.”

“Most important, the industry does not yet respect the principle that where a community is opposed to a mining operation, they shouldn’t mine,” Mr. Slack added.

Jewelers join cause

Matthew A. Runci, president of Jewelers of America Inc., a trade group representing 11,000 jewelry stores in the United States, said his group’s experience with the “conflict diamonds” 1998 campaign had it moving in the same direction as the No Dirty Gold initiative by 2003. In the 1998 campaign, nongovernmental organizations began exposing the link between the diamond trade and civil wars and other abuses in African countries such as Sierra Leone, Angola and Congo.

“That experience [with conflict diamonds] helped inform us, guide us and commit the necessary resources to devise an approach to supply-chain management,” Mr. Runci said.

To resolve growing concern about how gold is produced, Jewelers of America and other jewelry and mining groups announced in May 2005 the creation of a Council for Responsible Jewellery Practices.

The council is considering a certification system with an independent, third-party auditing body and logo or labeling similar to certification schemes used in the timber industry.

“There can be responsible gold mining on a large scale. The issue is: ‘What specific social and environmental standards ought to apply to particular sorts of mines in particular sorts of places,’” said Michael Rae, director of the council.

Residents protest

The industry effort to reform gold mining is a response to growing protests over the negative effects of gold mines, especially in developing countries, where environmental policies are often lax or poorly enforced.

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