Travel

'Life After Diamonds' highlights the destruction and challenges faced in mining communities in the post-war diamondiferous regions in Sierra Leone. Cooperatives in the Kono district are engaging in reclamation of wasted mining sites into agricultural productive land to create food security, encourage wider industry adoption of Corporate Social Responsibility and promote improved legislation.Shot in March and April 2009, 'Life After Diamonds' was created by Canadian volunteers Larissa Stendie and Sheryle Carlson, partnering with production team at the Environmental Foundation for Africa.During the Civil War in Sierra Leone, international consumers were understandably horrified to learn that jewelry they had purchased as a symbol of their love may have come at such terrible human and environmental costs, and began to push for tighter restrictions in the trade and paper trail for diamonds. While the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme has helped facilitate this in many countries, in Sierra Leone very little has changed, for while the regulations and legislation are in place, very little enforcement or compliance actually occur. Some speculate that the nebulous nature of licensing, fees, and ownership is deliberate, as everyone from journalists and shopkeepers, to chiefs and mines officials seem to have artisanal diggers whom they marginally support on a subsistence basis.