Great Green Idea: Green Jewelry: Green Diamonds: A Girl's Best Friend?

Green Diamonds: A Girl's Best Friend?

Blood diamonds are most definitely a girl's best friend. And what is a green diamond?

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Blood diamonds, otherwise commonly called a conflict diamond or a war diamond, are usually diamonds that are mined in a war or conflict zone. Blood diamonds usually laundered through the international diamond trade and sold to finance the insurgency or guerilla activity of a modern, so called "war-lord".

Usually, blood diamonds are sourced from Africa, where diamond production on the Continent accounts for about two thirds of all diamonds on the planet.

The only way this despicable trade can be stopped is if those people affluent enough to buy a diamond were to demand to know the source of their particular gem. If the buying public demands it, the sooner the diamond trade will bend to those demands.

The diamond trade around the world IS cleaning up its act, however it is a long, slow process, and international police and security operations have to be as alert as ever in bringing to a halt this despicable trade in human misery.

But the diamond industry is essentially a green industry, even though the excavation cost in getting "green diamonds" out of the ground are huge. Unfortunately, there are less than scrupulous mining companies that care little for the environment, and to keep excavation cost down, use a method of excavation known as strip mining.

Excavation cost for what may be termed as "green diamonds" are relatively high because most diamonds tend to be found deep underground, and some of the deepest mines in the world are in Africa, although not the deepest.

That record belongs to the Mima mine in Russia; although now shut down, it is over 520 meters deep. So you see the excavation cost of getting those tiny little sparklers out of the ground, just so you can get her to say "I do" are enormous.

To say a diamond is a "green diamond" is at best a little white lie, but there are some diamonds that are greener than others. The very nature of where diamonds are found precludes a rally environmentally friendly method of extracting them.

Where the environment is devastated in the pursuit of these tiny little pieces of sparkly carbon, then no, that is definitely not an eco friendly diamond. What one needs to do is to ask the source of the diamond and make a considered choice based on the resulting information. All diamond production can be traced via the Kimberly Process, instituted in 2000 and led by the African diamond producers themselves.

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What now needs to be tightened up is how the diamonds are mined, and governments to severely restrict, or even ban altogether strip mining practices. Only governments can really do anything about the greening of the diamond mining industry. There is a long way to go, but one small step at a time will get there.

So, is a green diamond really a girl's best friend? Well the answer has to be that a greener diamond has to be better than the alternative. Get those ring finger ready girls.