Boycott Mined Diamonds

The diamond industry already has a long history of environmental destruction, human rights abuses, and consumer exploitation.  It now has a reason for being even more unecessary and superfluous.  It's been made redundant: laboratories have recently begun to produce diamonds as clear and colorless as any mined stone, and in great enough numbers to sell them to the public.  

For too long we have been misinformed.  We've been told they are rare, while untold thousands of carats sit stockpiled to drive up prices.  We've been told they're conflict-free, despite a broken and useless certification scheme.  We've been told they're eco-friendly, despite undeniable damage to the ecology in Canada and Austrailia.  

Mines are terribly destructive and unsustainable.  There is absolutely no way to dig up tons of earth without damaging the environment by displacing fish and wildlife, contaminating waterways with tailings and silt, and polluting with tons of heavy equipment.  The supply of what is being mined will inevitably be depleted.  It's bad enough that to support our modern world we rely on mines for copper, coal, nickel, etc., but the motivation behind mining for diamonds is only based on greed.  

Lab created diamond is diamond, pure and simple.  A diamond made in a lab is identical in every way to one formed naturally.  Prices for man-made diamonds have finally fallen (as of 2012) to match those of their mined counterparts, but to avoid buying diamonds dug up in mines there are also plenty of other options.

Instead of buying mined diamonds, we can:

• Buy a lab-created (AKA man-made or cultured) diamond from a company such as Gemesis, Scio Diamond or D.Nea.

• Choose an alternate clear, lab-created gemstone such as moissanite or white sapphire.

• Buy a diamond simulant such as Cubic Zirconia (CZ, zirconium dioxide).

• For bridal jewelry, opt to use stones passed down from elders or start a new tradition entirely, such as custom jewelry using recycled gold and silver.

By signing this petition we will be sending a message to retailers that the tide is turning in favor of man-made stones, and that we have no qualms about buying a gemstone that wasn't taken from the earth.  To the contrary, we are offended by gemstones uneccessarily and destructively dug from the ground when they could have been created in labs, free of all the associated human rights abuses and environmental destruction.  We understand that many jewelers are hesitant to promote lab-created gemstones because they are harder to make a profit by selling.  However, they should also understand that soon there will be no profit to be made on any gemstone which came from a mine.


For more information on boycotting mined diamonds please see www.boycottdiamonds.org