In Search of an Ethical Ruby Ring

In 2003, and again in 2008, then-U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law legislation prohibiting trade with Burma, also known as Myanmar. For any shopper who was interested in purchasing a ruby ring and was not already a conscientious consumer, precocious in the best sense of the word and concerned about fair and ethical trade, this additional piece of American corroboration may have brought things to a head.

The Mogok region of Burma is known as the "Valley of Rubies," and it produces 90% of the world's rubies. A consumer in a Western democracy who buys a piece of treasured jewelry - merely doing what consumers do - may unwittingly be helping add enormous sums of money to the brutal and widely reviled military dictatorship. The shopper may be helping fund the junta's human rights violations and the horrible treatment of the miners.

Information Overload
Thanks to global communication, information about the potential ethical quandaries in a consumer purchase is at an all-time high. In a way, this puts an unfair burden upon shoppers who are obliged to contemplate a hundred hard problems before buying a candy bar, much less a ruby ring. In the 1980s comic strip Bloom County, Berke Breathed once had a character decide to just dangle from a tree branch all day in search of less harm and a lighter environmental footprint.

However, many shoppers are dealing with overwhelming information in a graceful and admirable way. And there are an increasing number of companies - setting aside the problem of disingenuous business merely portraying itself as "green" or "good" to take advantage - who are making a real effort to create more ethical business practices.

Bright Facets
A scene from the 2007 documentary _Diamond Road_ shows industry gadfly Martin Rapaport addressing an annual jewelry-business trade show in Las Vegas. He makes his pitch: that the industry can do well by doing good.

"Ethics is about doing the right thing," he says, and soon his voice is catching.

Rapaport's own work with Sierra Leone diamond miners is in the early stages - he hopes to create his own fair markets so that diamond revenue can get back to the miners.

There is also a new company mining fair-trade rubies in Tanzania and wearing its concern for social and environmental impacts on its sleeve. Some day soon it may be possible to buy an ethical ruby ring.