Every day, diamond diggers in diamond-rich regions in West Africa face dangerous working conditions, brutal violence, and famine, often making less than $1 a day. The economic benefits of diamonds are not trickling down to local diamond mining communities. The mining regions of West Africa remain among the poorest in their respective countries, despite their diamond resources. Attempts to regulate the diamond industry such as the Kimberley Process remain largely ineffective to provide a better future for diamond diggers. Brilliant Earth supports creating demand for ethically-sourced diamonds as the surest way to promote social reform, providing a direct economic incentive for our industry to implement fair trade diamond practices.

Brilliant Earth believes that diamond consumers can help diggers attain a fair price for their labor, safe working conditions, clean water, and basic health care by demanding a fair trade diamond alternative. The progress of workers in other fair trade industries, such as coffee and chocolate, gives us hope that we can make these same improvements in the diamond industry. Fair trade standards have lifted poor producers out of abject poverty, increased wages three to five fold, and improved health and environmental practices as producers take greater stewardship over their land.

We believe a fair trade diamond market is possible in West Africa, one that can help organize diggers into cooperatives, cut out unethical middlemen, and conserve the digger's fair share of the value of diamonds. Fair trade diamond industry standards will ensure a higher income for diamond diggers and promote community development -- providing the necessary funds for basic education and medical care. Fair trade diamond certification standards are in the early stages of development by organizations such as Transfair, which certifies other fair trade products including coffee and chocolate. While we wait for fair trade diamond certification, we continue to support organizations whose practices are consistent with emerging fair trade diamond mining practices.

Brilliant Earth is pleased to announce we have begun to purchase diamonds from PRIDE Diamonds (recently acquired by Target Resources Plc), a socially responsible Sierra Leone diamond mining organization that aids workers and their communities through their fair trade diamond mining practices. PRIDE Diamonds demonstrates its high standard of social responsibility by paying its workers several times the average gross national income of Sierra Leone, reinvesting money into the surrounding communities, and rehabilitating land mined into productive farming. By sourcing ethical diamonds from Sierra Leone through responsible diamond organizations like PRIDE Diamonds, we hope to build demand for widespread industry change. One community at a time, fair trade diamond-producing cooperatives can create a better future for the diggers in West Africa. We hope to be able to expand this practice as more responsibly produced diamonds become available.

While fair trade diamond certification standards continue to evolve, Brilliant Earth offers our customers another way to help promote change in the diamond industry: our broad selection of Canadian diamonds guaranteed to originate from ethical and environmentally responsible sources. Browse our collection of Canadian diamonds, or learn more about what makes Canadian diamonds unique.