River of Gold

I had the honor of being involved with the New York City Jewelry Week (NYCJW) in the capacity of volunteer, needless to say it was A-mazing!

2019 was the second year of NYCJW, with over 10,000 events taking part throughout New York City. I met participants, exhibitors, speakers and artists from around the globe, it was an experience for sure. Highly recommend checking it out next year.

I didn’t have the opportunity to participate in more than four events, because they obviously overlap and I had to work 9-5. Anyway, most favorite event was the screening of the documentary film ‘River of Gold’ at FIT. River of Gold was a documentary film created by the Amazon Aid Foundation capturing the devastation caused by the illegal Gold mining happening along the Amazon River. The film was shot in Peru, on site - the creators actually followed these miners and was able to film the actual mining operations.

It was an eye opener, the devastation caused is so intense - these miners aren’t simply dredging the Amazon River, they are burning the forests, disturbing the forest habitat, and contaminating the earth and water in the areas with Mercury. Once they exhaust an area, they leave an open pit of devastation behind, and move on to a new site along the Amazon River.

As a result of the public awareness of the consequences of this illegal trade created by films such as this, the Peruvian government has taken action to irradiate illegal mining as much as possible, have also made efforts to reforest and rehabilitate devastated areas of the Amazon. But of course, it may take years to filter out the mercury and reforest back to its original states. What’s really sad is, these activities have either driven away or wiped out many endangered and local animals as well have Amazonian Tribal communities away from these areas. There’s a chance that its natural ecology may never be restored to what it once was.

The Amazon Aid Foundation, Pure Earth and Ethical Metal Smiths are a few organizations heavily involved in the movement to push ethical and sustainable mining and sourcing of minerals while protecting natural habitats and forests. They also provide aid and resources for rehabilitating areas, lives and habitat affected by these activities.

Following the screening of film, the panel representing these three bodies opened to the floor to a Q&A session. It was a very interesting session. The most memorable moment for me from that evening was when an angry older gentleman asked the panelist why Gold was being mined and used in Jewelry in the first place. He said it was an archaic and superficial tradition to create jewelry from Gold purely for adornment purposes. I thought it was a valid question considering there’s already so many alternates to gold that industry can market. However the answer that followed was even more interesting. Apparently the Jewelry Industry although probably the largest consumer of Gold and other precious minerals, only consumes about 40% of Gold above ground. And because Gold is such a good conductor, the Tech and Electronics Industries are responsible for the consumption of a large piece of the balance 60%. Organization like the Ethical Metal smiths are of course working in partnership with these industries to find alternatives and source conflict free minerals, but it is not an easy, black and white process at this time. Tracing and tracking provenance for minerals is complicated. The black market makes things even more complicated.

The concept of Sustainability has always been close to my heart, but I realized I’ve been very ignorant to reality of the level of devastation being caused to the earth everyday. The thought of where my jewelry or clothing has occurred to me, but not to the very depth of the source.

And this is just one small corner of the world being exposed, there’s so much devastation happening all over, under wraps mostly. I was one of those people who thought Greta Thunberg was extreme, but the more you know, the more extreme you will be I guess.

While this whole situation is depressing, it’s great to know that there are genuine efforts being made to make things better. Large companies such as Apple and Tiffany & Co. are actually committed to supporting sustainability initiatives and are not just trying to look good on paper. Pure Earth foundation for instance is fully funded by Tiffany & Co. And I heard somewhere Apple Inc., is one of the very first Tech companies making efforts to streamline their supply chain to source conflict free minerals. I didn’t unfortunately have the time to research the particulars pertaining to their suitability efforts, but I believe what I heard at this event. There are good people, trying to do their best. We as consumers can of course do our part, first by being aware, and then by making efforts to buy conflict free, ethically sources materials.

So I guess there’s little hope after all. If you are someone that wants to get involved and make a difference, please reach out to either one of these organizations. Below listed are links to their websites.

Amazon Aid Foundation: https://amazonaid.org/

Ethical Metalsmiths: https://ethicalmetalsmiths.org/

Pure Earth: https://www.pureearth.org/