Scale Gold,1

A Gold to Love

Valentine’s Day sees the arrival of the first ever Fairtrade and Fairmined gold. An ingot of just under one and a half kilos was presented at Hatton Gardens, the heart of London’s jewellery trade.

Not only will consumers soon be able to buy Fairtrade Mark jewellery but the initiative will also raise awarness of the often dire work conditions of artisanal and small scale miners. Gold stamped with the Fairtrade and Fairmined Marks ensures that the metal has been mined, processed and traded in a fair and responsible manner. This first ingot of gold comes from the Cotapata Mining Cooperative in Bolivia that consists of 88 families working in the Cotapata National Park which incorporates the Yungas rainforest near La Paz. Juana Pena Endara, a technician from the cooperative and deputy President, presented the ingot to the press.

Fairtrade gold has been the work of the Fairtrade Foundation and ARM (Alliance for Responsible Mining). According to the Alliance for Responsible Mining, there are around 15 million artisanal and small-scale gold miners in the world, producing some 200-300 tonnes of gold whose existence is characterised by high levels of poverty and described by the Fairtrade Foundation as usually lacking in basic sanitation, clean and safe drinking water and having poor housing, little or no access to education or healthcare and financially unstable.

Though artisanal and small-scale miners produce 10% of global gold supplies, they account for 90% of labour in gold extraction. A complex supply chain involving unscrupulous middlemen means that the miner often is left with very little of the final price that the gold is sold for. “Many miners often face exploitation from middle men who pay below market prices and cheat them on weight and purity of the gold content,” says the Fairtrade Foundation press release.

Under the Fairtrade scheme, miners will receive a minimum price of 95% of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) fix for their gold. As well as fair working conditions and pay, the gold will be sold at a Fairtrade premium of 10% above the LBMA fix. Miners can earn and additional ecological premium of 5% if they recover gold without the use of mercury or cyanide and ensure minimum ecological disruption. The premium will be invested in democratically agreed economic, social or environmental improvements of the miners’ choice.

The project was first initiated by ARM at grass-roots level with nine mining organisations in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. The Fairtrade Foundation says that more mining organisations from Latin America will join the system and that ARM is also establishing a network of pilot projects in Africa, and later in Asia.

The first twenty jewellers to sign up for Fairtrade gold include the world’s oldest jeweller Garrards, London-based Stephen Webster, pioneer ethical jeweller Cred and anthropologist turned jeweller Pippa Small. Ute Decker, one of the twenty jewellers, believes that the arrival of this certified gold has the potential to radically reform the gold jewellery sector.

Exciting as the arrival of Fairtrade gold may be, it will only be available in limited quantities. The Fairtrade Foundation envisions the certified gold will account for 5% of the gold jewellery market over a 15-year period.

As the first pieces of jewellery made from Fairtrade gold arrive in shops later this year, opportunities for thousands of impoverished small-scale and artisanal miners in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru will start to become a reality

Maria Doulton is The Jewellery Editor, based in London, England – Maria provides expert advice on jewels, watches, high jewellery and

fairtrade gold.

About the Author

I am a freelance writer who enjoys writing about fashion, trends and woman’s jewellery.

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