Mother Nature has blessed large parts of Africa with diamonds and, like it or not, the glittering stones offer an opportunity for millions of poor Africans to better their lives by exploiting this natural resource. The problem is, it’s too easy for governmental agencies and multinational diamond companies to become more interested in the stones than in the people who dig them up, impoverishing the miners in the process and robbing them of their dignity. This issue and others will be discussed at the upcoming Rapaport International Diamond Conference, which will take place on February 5, 2007 in New York City.

Especially germane is the plight of the so-called “artisanal diggers” of West Africa, those diamond miners who work independently of large companies. Most artisanal diggers live and work in countries whose economies lie in ruins, due to corruption and failed governmental policies. As a result, they’re among the poorest people in the world — an irony, considering that they exploit one of the world’s most valuable resources. Taken as individuals, each may produce just a few carats of useful diamonds a year. However, taken as a group, their production is substantial; it’s estimated that there are more than one million artisanal diamond diggers in West Africa alone.

The organizers of the Rapaport International Diamond Conference believe that these people deserve to obtain a fair level of benefit for their labor. The main thrust of the conference is to debate ways of improving their lives, particularly through economic development powered by the private sector. Other issues to be tackled in the day-long conference include ways to legitimize the artisanal production of diamonds in West Africa; the question of whether the public should purchase West African diamonds at all; and the humanitarian and developmental responsibilities of regional diamond companies.

The ultimate substance of the conference is the moral and ethical foundation of the diamond trade — one of the world’s richest industries, which gets most of its product from a region where people are so poor that up to 28% die before they see their fifth year. It’s past time, says industry giant Martin Rapaport, that the industry starts providing the right kinds of answers about their trade, rather than ignoring the plight of the people involved, or hiding it with clever public relations. Among the presenters at the conference will be Ed Zwick, the producer of the new movie Blood Diamond, a Leonardo Di Caprio potboiler that has the entire world diamond industry astir. Also appearing will be Karel Kovanda, the new head of the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme; Alex Yearsley of Global Witness (a watchdog group); and various jewel industry executives.

No doubt the proceedings will be dogged by the issue of conflict diamonds, those illicit stones mined to finance the innumerable internal conflicts that have flared across Africa in the past few decades. Central to the plot of Zwick’s movie is its less-than-glamorous portrayal of the vicious civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990s, which was bankrolled by diamonds that miners dug out of the ground at gunpoint. Industry insiders insist that the era of so-called “conflict diamonds” is over, given the adoption of the widespread Kimberly Process by governments, the diamond trade, and non-governmental retailers all over the diamond-producing world. Watchdog groups claim the Kimberly Process is full of holes that smugglers use to get illegal diamonds legitimized and onto the market. Though the conflict diamond issue isn’t intended as a focus of the conference, it will doubtless bring a little spice to the proceedings, especially given Zwick’s presence and presentation.