January 24 Through February 4—TUCSON, ARIZONA: Annual show
Welcome to the GemologyOnline.com Forum
A non-profit Forum for the exchange of gemological ideas
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 9:14 pm

All times are UTC - 4 hours




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 25 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2  Next
Author Message
 Post subject: 54 Jewelers Join Anti-Mine Boycott
PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 3:19 pm 
Offline
Site Admin
User avatar

Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:22 pm
Posts: 21602
Location: San Francisco
54 Jewelers Join Anti-Mine Boycott

By JCK Staff

Posted on February 10, 2011
Quote:
Fifty-four jewelers have pledged not to use gold from the proposed Pebble Mine in Southwest Alaska’s Bristol Bay, organizers claim.

The mine, a project of Anglo American, a shareholder in De Beers, and Northern Dynasty Minerals, would be the largest open-pit mine in North America. It has not yet received formal approval.

Anti-mine campaigners claim it will generate up to 10 billion tons of toxic waste that would be disposed in the Bristol Bay watershed, a major source of wild salmon. But the mine’s proponents argue it will bring jobs and economic growth to the area.

Among the jewelers who have joined the campaign: Zale, Helzberg, John Hardy, and Tiffany.

“Jostens recognizes that Alaska’s Bristol Bay Watershed is an ecosystem of national and international significance and,” said Richard Stoebe, communications director of Jostens, a prominent class ring company.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: 54 Jewelers Join Anti-Mine Boycott
PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 3:33 pm 
Offline
Platinum Member
User avatar

Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2006 1:20 am
Posts: 2756
Location: Southern California, U.S.A.
That reaction puzzles me. Like oil, gold is fungible. Once it's out of the ground and refined there's no way to tell where it originally came from. How will those retailers be able to boycott gold just from that specific source unless they stop buying gold altogether?

_________________
Rick Martin

www.artcutgems.com


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: 54 Jewelers Join Anti-Mine Boycott
PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 3:39 pm 
Offline
Site Admin
User avatar

Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2009 3:53 pm
Posts: 2049
Location: Sweden
My thought too :)

_________________
_____________
Conny Forsberg


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: 54 Jewelers Join Anti-Mine Boycott
PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 3:46 pm 
Offline
Site Admin
User avatar

Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:22 pm
Posts: 21602
Location: San Francisco
Good question.

Perhaps these companies buy directly from certain mining operations, not in a secondary market.

Just a speculation.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: 54 Jewelers Join Anti-Mine Boycott
PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 2:35 pm 
Offline
Active Member
User avatar

Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2008 10:29 pm
Posts: 90
A little bit off topic, but occurred to me when I read the other gold topic. i remember years ago when I did some work in Alaska, I took a tour. There were enumerable large piles of dirt along some roads. The tour guide said it was left over from previous mining operations and the soil still had a decent amount of gold in it. The problem was that there was no easy or financially sound method of extracting the gold so the piles were just left there. When enough years pass, history always seems to repeat itself.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: 54 Jewelers Join Anti-Mine Boycott
PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 4:26 pm 
Offline
Gemology Online Veteran

Joined: Sat Apr 24, 2010 7:10 am
Posts: 584
The bristol bay water shed is as large as many whole countries.The moning of gold there will "destroy"(temporarily on a geologic time scale)less then 1/2 of 1% of it.
We all want the pristine areas of the world to remain that way yet we all also want the conviences of modern life.... gemstones and gold to keep us busy.
If we completely halt mining then we can't have these things.I'm an avid fisherman and the salmon runs seem to be the major concern but we also need the raw materials to maintain or improve our lives.If the epa can come up with plans for maintaining ...as much as possible...the environment while still allowing gold ,oil,copper etc to be brought to the marketplace then we should allow it.
How many of you that want a pristine environment would be willing to go back to living as simple agrarian societies?
I suspect that it wouldn't be appealing to many people if we did.
The wonton waste of the environment is nothing that any thinking human could or should imagine.Niether is life without the things we get by mining ,drilling or growing the raw materials for.
Mining gemstones is rarely done by someone wandering around just picking them off the ground.
Are you ready to give up the love of mining products that brought you to this board?
Me either.
Hopefully we can have both.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: 54 Jewelers Join Anti-Mine Boycott
PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:29 pm 
Offline
Gold Member
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2008 1:35 pm
Posts: 1189
Location: Vancouver, Canada
ROM wrote:
That reaction puzzles me. Like oil, gold is fungible. Once it's out of the ground and refined there's no way to tell where it originally came from. How will those retailers be able to boycott gold just from that specific source unless they stop buying gold altogether?


Major jewellers threatening to boycott at least sends the message that it shouldn't be approved.

There have to be some places in the world where we can just stay out and let them exist as wilderness. Mining there won't improve anything but someone's bottom line, and will destroy something that can't be replaced.

_________________
Lisa Elser, G.G.
http://www.lisaelser.com


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: 54 Jewelers Join Anti-Mine Boycott
PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 6:31 pm 
Offline
Site Admin

Joined: Thu Jan 05, 2006 4:27 pm
Posts: 1750
Quote:
How many of you that want a pristine environment would be willing to go back to living as simple agrarian societies


Well I for one would like that. It's one thing to accept mining for the things we need it's another to condone the continued wrecking of the planet not to provide us with what we need but only to line some fat cat companies pocket with profit for what these companies marketing divisions tell us what we need

Quote:
The bristol bay water shed is as large as many whole countries.The moning of gold there will "destroy"(temporarily on a geologic time scale)less then 1/2 of 1% of it.


er...which countries?...do you mean holland, belgium or the USA? Is the area half the size of a medium US state or 5% of belgium?...either way this is a massive amount of "prestine land" I personally think it's time to tell big business to get it's dirty paws out of the planets resources.

Funny but when gold was mined by folk with pans there still seemed to be enough...now were told it'll run out if we don't turn a blind eye to huge companies with no eco concience...personaly I think it's time to say enough to these large conglomerates...I suspect most of the gold will become part of someones private fortune and the rest of us will never see much of it (a bit like de beers diamond vaults under London

Just my 2 cts


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: 54 Jewelers Join Anti-Mine Boycott
PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 8:20 pm 
Offline
Gemology Online Veteran

Joined: Sat Apr 24, 2010 7:10 am
Posts: 584
Frank,
I don't know where you live but if you would like to see how big bristol bay and its water shed is go to google earth.Type in bristol bay,alaska and when the map comes up back the eye level out to 500 kilometers.Then take the same view of europe,california or any area you know well.Alaska is a big big place and 10 square miles of land mined and then reclaimed afterwards won't put a dent in it any bigger then the cup on a green of an eighteen hole golf course,a piece of aggregate in a concrete parking lot or a bead on a string in a tent in tucson. :mrgreen: I could probably list all the countries it is bigger then but I am kinda busy.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: 54 Jewelers Join Anti-Mine Boycott
PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 8:27 pm 
Offline
Gold Member
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2008 1:35 pm
Posts: 1189
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Look at fracking. Just an easy way to get at the natural gas...until you get cancer and your plumbing explodes.

Especially for a luxury item we should err on the side of caution.

_________________
Lisa Elser, G.G.
http://www.lisaelser.com


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: 54 Jewelers Join Anti-Mine Boycott
PostPosted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 1:07 am 
Offline
Valued Contributor
User avatar

Joined: Fri Nov 12, 2010 11:37 pm
Posts: 237
Location: Warsaw, IN
This is one of those times I get "paralyzed" by being able to see both sides of an argument. On one hand we have the point that stairman puts forth that, geologically speaking there really isn't going to be an discernible impact on the planet. That said I think that it is a step forward for human civilization to make concerted efforts to work to be good stewards of the planet we have.
There are of course the "practical" concerns about the viability of a boycott of the gold obtained (should this operation be allowed to continue). But the names I saw all were of large names in the jewelery business, names that even my non-gemmy friends would recognize. I would find it a bit unlikely if at least part of the gold the companies acquire does come from specific mines. My reason is that that would be the cheapest way for them to acquire the raw materials (this being bullion, not the actual nuggets and dust that are mined), particularly when you consider that these companies are large enough to have their own refineries. However what seems logical and reasonable with this has no bearing on the policies the companies have in these things.
Then there are the other questions, summed up I think rather well by Jeff Goldblum's line in Jurassic Par, "You were so busy figuring out if you Could do it, you never stopped to ask if you Should do it." That is at the heart of this whole thing. Yes, some company can do all this, and yes, that is most likely to mean that there are maybe 50 or so people who actually show a gain in their net worth from the mined gold, and if we're really lucky it will trickle down to the point where some of us can get our hands on it. But how is it being obtained? Is there going to be even a mediocre effort made to keep the by-products of the whole operation from affecting a vast ecosystem?
Though I question greatly the motives of the politicians (as if that really needs to be said) and a good many of the companies that are turning a profit off of the current pushes for "green"-ing up the planet, the goal is one that I do champion myself. As Frank pointed out that when individuals are panning for gold, there is plenty to go around. That's what conservation and stewardship is about, but where is the bottom line? If we rely sole on the contributions of the panners, short of another miraculous find that causes a new gold rush, we will actually find ourselves short and the already high price of gold is going to reach a point where we can't afford any. It's all a delicate balance to strike between what we desire from the bounty of the earth, and the price of trying to make sure that our children can experience that bounty too.
For most of the things that we as jewelers, gemologists, and lapidarists use we are no longer able to meet the demands of civilization for our products by just retrieving the bits that have survived to the reach the surface. We're now faced with several options, destroy some of our environments to access these goods, make our own, or do without. For the latter we can't, too many (read:all) men need to apologize for blundering about. For the foremost, we can try to be responsible and try to minimize our impact through thoughtful disposal of wastes and finding ways for nature to reclaim the area once we feel we've "used it up". Or we find ways of making our own and accept that it may not be quite as magical since it isn't directly from the earth and is a repeatable substance, we can still produce beautiful objects to adorn ourselves with.
Just my thoughts about this. (And I don't think that we've found a way of making synthetic gold, but maybe we can pick up where those alchemists left off :-k ](*,) )

_________________
- Jonathan R. Enck

The glass is completely full, however the ratio of liquid to air may not be to your personal preference.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: 54 Jewelers Join Anti-Mine Boycott
PostPosted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 1:28 pm 
Offline
Site Admin

Joined: Thu Jan 05, 2006 4:27 pm
Posts: 1750
Quote:
Frank,
I don't know where you live but if you would like to see how big bristol bay and its water shed is go to google earth.Type in bristol bay,alaska and when the map comes up back the eye level out to 500 kilometers.Then take the same view of europe,california or any area you know well.Alaska is a big big place and 10 square miles of land mined and then reclaimed afterwards won't put a dent in it any bigger then the cup on a green of an eighteen hole golf course,a piece of aggregate in a concrete parking lot or a bead on a string in a tent in tucson. :mrgreen: I could probably list all the countries it is bigger then but I am kinda busy.


Does it really matter how big it is? Your arguement was that these places need mined so we can all continue to have gold for jewellery. I expect that there is enough gold to last the jewellery industry for centuries...problem is that most of it is made into bricks and stored in the Bank of England, Fort knox and every other national treasury in the world. Do you really think it's "OK" to just keep raping the land? we're not talking of a rush here with hundreds of small timers we are talking about a few individuals who will go in with machines and pay no more than lip service to the local ecological repairs and all the wealth will be retained by the few. I'm not against mining per se I'm just against fat cat commodity exploiters who really don't give a damn about the damage they do, only the profit they can make.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: 54 Jewelers Join Anti-Mine Boycott
PostPosted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 2:19 pm 
Offline
Site Admin
User avatar

Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:22 pm
Posts: 21602
Location: San Francisco
Statistics indicate that 52% of gold reserves in the world are used for jewelry purposes, this gold is recycled over and over for use and subsequent re-use.

That leaves 48% that is hoarded for investment. Since the price of gold has inflated almost 30% in the last few months, hoarding gold for investment has become more desirable to countries, banks and private entities.

I would bet increased mining ventures have more to do with satisfying current investment trends than satisfying jewelry needs.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: 54 Jewelers Join Anti-Mine Boycott
PostPosted: Sun Feb 13, 2011 7:24 pm 
Offline
Active Member

Joined: Tue Dec 29, 2009 1:12 pm
Posts: 53
Location: Great Falls, MT
The gold at Bristol Bay to me, is just like the oil in Alaska's ANWAR.

It's perfectly safe where it's at.
I have an immense amount of faith in our ability to one day develope the technolgies to extract them without destroying the environment around them.
Until then, it's money in the bank.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: 54 Jewelers Join Anti-Mine Boycott
PostPosted: Sun Feb 13, 2011 9:05 pm 
Offline
Established Member
User avatar

Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2006 11:38 pm
Posts: 42
oscartg wrote:
The gold at Bristol Bay to me, is just like the oil in Alaska's ANWAR.

It's perfectly safe where it's at.
I have an immense amount of faith in our ability to one day develope the technolgies to extract them without destroying the environment around them.
Until then, it's money in the bank.


Agreed =D> =D> =D>


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 25 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2  Next

All times are UTC - 4 hours


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group
Gemology Style ported to phpBB3 by Christian Bullock