How You Can Help



Ninety percent of gems come from small scale, artisan miners who efforts support tens of millions of people around the world. As publishers of www.fairjewelry.org, we have launched international campaigns in support of indigenous rights, specifically in Greenland.



The gemstone trade is highly commoditized and price driven. Often, small scale miners fall victim to major corporations who collude with corrupt governments to exploit resources, leaving little behind other than polluted watersheds and destroyed farmlands.

Some gems, such as Tanzanite, have developed a terrible reputation for unsafe mining and child labor. Other gems, such as those from Burma, are boycotted to protect the public relations of the jewelry sector, even though the boycott most hurts the people in Burma who support the grass roots democracy movement.

You have a role to play in this as a concerned person who cares about humanity. No matter who you end up buying from, ask your jeweler for a fair trade gem gemstone, or a gemstone that can be traced from mine to market. If just five percent of jewelry customers were to ask for this, it would push this market.