The Diamond Development Initiative — “a unique effort to address the problems faced by the millions of artisanal diamond diggers and their families, in Africa and South America” — came out with this excellent video featuring Ian Smillie, Ngomesia Mayer-Kechom and Dorothée Gizenga:

They speak about the history of the DDI, Development Diamonds, involvement of the industry, and the challenges faced in artisanal mining.

“Development Diamonds” may not yet be available to consumers, but a donation to the DDI can certainly help bring that promise closer to reality. I’ve long thought that the market is screaming for something along these lines (I am in that market) …

This interview is fascinating. Farai Maguwu was imprisoned by Mugabe’s thugs after documenting human rights abuses in Marange and reporting them to KPCS monitors. Here he details his frustrations with the KP :

I found this speech particularly influential. In fact, before seeing this speech, I was convinced that insisting on a Canadian diamond was the more ‘moral’,’ethical’ thing to do. What I found disappointing is that he encourages people to buy diamonds from Sierra Leone, but from a consumer perspective, it is of course impossible to do so (request a stone in which the rough came from a certain country).

Interesting interview on Zohar’s thoughts of the challenges of a “tiered” distribution system, and tracing diamonds from origin through the system.