Jewelers being asked to boycott
gold from Alaska mine
By MARY PEMBERTON, Associated Press Writer
Published: January 3, 2007
Last Modified: January 3, 2007 at 03:54 PM
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/ap_alaska/story/8536497p-8430402c.html
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Jewelers are being
asked to boycott gold from a huge open pit mine proposed for
Alaska that many Alaska Natives fear will ruin their way of
life.
An ad campaign launched this week in National
Jeweler, an industry news tabloid, is designed to educate
jewelers about the Pebble Mine project in the Bristol Bay
watershed, home to the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the
world.
"Our biggest concern is what will the future
generations have?" said Bobby Andrew, spokesman for Nunamta
Aulukestai, an association of eight Alaska Native village
corporations in Bristol Bay. "This type of massive industrialization
at the heart of Bristol Bay will forever harm the abundant
fish and wildlife resources that sustain this region."
Earthworks, a Washington D.C.-based environmental
group, is paying between $10,000 and $20,000 to place the
ad in the January, February and March issues of National Jeweler.
"We need your help. Bristol Bay is the
wrong place for a gold mine. No responsible jeweler would
knowingly buy gold mined there," the ad says. "Your
support will let customers know that you care about preserving
your company's glowing reputation."
Jewelers are being asked to take a pledge at http://www.protectbristolbay.org.
Earthworks president Steve D'Esposito said consumers
increasingly want to know that lives were not destroyed in
making their gold and diamond jewelry.
"That includes destruction of the watershed,"
D'Esposito said.
The movie "Blood Diamond," starring
Leonardo DiCaprio, is helping get that message across to the
public, he said. The movie is set in Sierra Leone in the late
1990s, when the West African country was in the throes of
a civil war and untraceable diamonds allegedly funded fighters
who hacked off people's hands with machetes and burned entire
villages.
"I think "Blood Diamond" is the
'Ah-ha!' moment when the consumer says this wedding ring does
not come magically, it comes from some place," D'Esposito
said.
The National Jeweler ad is intended to get that
message across to jewelers, who he said account for up to
85 percent of the world's annual gold consumption.
Brian Kraft, a Bristol Bay fishing lodge owner
and founder of the Bristol Bay Alliance, said jewelers are
being asked to help protect what he describes as a world-class
treasure.
"Their customers will want to know that
the jewelry they purchase does not come at the expense of
the world's greatest salmon fishery and the communities that
depend on it," he said.
Canadian company Northern Dynasty Minerals is
proposing to build the mine 238 miles southwest of Anchorage.
The company says Pebble Mine is the largest North American
gold deposit and second-largest copper deposit on the continent.
It estimates the total value of metals at Pebble Mine at between
$150 billion and $200 billion.
Northern Dynasty did not immediately return
a call Wednesday for comment.
The company says it is still developing plans
for the mine and has not settled on size or design.
The company has applied to construct a dam rising
more than 700 feet to hold mine tailings. Critics say the
dam would be higher than the Grand Coulee Dam, the Hoover
Dam and the Seattle Space Needle.
Trout Unlimited, which last month launched a
similar ad campaign, says the mine would cover 15 square miles,
with an open pit 2 miles long and a half-mile wide and over
1,700 feet deep.
Last month, 37 leaders in the sport fishing
industry launched the similar campaign, urging fishermen to
oppose the mine. Their message was delivered in ads placed
in Fish Alaska magazine and Fly Fisherman Magazine.
For more information, contact :
Renewable
Resources Coalition, Inc.
500 L Street, Suite 502
Anchorage, AK 99501
Telephone: (907) 632-9933
Fax: (907) 272-9319
Email: info@renewableresourcescoalition.org |
