What price would you put on a diamond or even gold, is certainly not the economy of an entire country. That is the case in South Africa with mining being their fuel to boost their economy. Their economy needed the boost due to political instability burying the country into the ground. Being the fuel that helped South Africa’s GDP raise by 20% it has helped this country improve so much over the years.
Political instability is one of the key factors that has and still makes South Africa so dependent on the mining industry. There is an excessive amount of poverty in South Africa due to an unemployment rate of 22.7%. The unemployment is high for several reasons, the first being racial discrepancies. In South Africa it has always been one race is superior over the other. Taking that into account when it comes to jobs a whole race would not be hired for the job just because of the color of their skin. The Second factor is the lack of education so the community does not have the knowledge to do the job. Third, is lifestyle of tribal people. The tribal people in South Africa have not adjusted to the lifestyle of people in the society. On average they hunt for food and look for materials that will be helpful; for instance, wood, clay and coal. Therefore the tribal people are in poverty because they do not use money to support themselves. That is why political instability is holding the South African economy back and making it reliant on their mining industry.
Mining in the past has helped give the South African economy a direction to follow and have a solid bases to build off of. Diamonds were first discovered in 1867 in Johannesburg by a Dutch farmer which was the beginning of South Africa’s expanding economy. 1886 the gold industry star...
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...quality. The chemical spills will also effect the water supply. They had decreased the death rate due to mining to under 500 in 1996. A decade later it had decreased to under 200 deaths. Over time the government has been able to make working in the mines safer for the community. The mining industry has created a negative effect on the health of the workers but the community is trying to solve that problem.
Over all the mining industry has had a positive effect on South Africa. It has caused positive relationships with neighboring countries, improve the economy of South Africa in the past, and is still improving the economy now. The mining industry has helped South Africa break through the political instability that has been holding it back. Even though there are a few problems the mining industry is causing it is over all helping South Africa be a better country.
One of the biggest problems with working in a mine is the the health risks you are taking when stepping into a mine and staying there anywhere from 10-16 hours of the day. Miners of the Gilded Age, needless to say, did not live very long at all. Some of the diseases they contracted were black lung, Silicosis, and COPD. Coal Miner’s Pneumoconiosis, more commonly referred to as Black Lung, is caused by inhaling respirable coal mine dust. Silicosis is a more specific, but yet still commonly found in coal miners, version of Black Lung caused by inhaling respirable crystalline silica, such as Quartz, a major component in rocks. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, or COPD, is still common today in people who don’t even work in mines. COPD is a progressive disease that increases airway
The history and popularity of diamonds in Africa all began in 1866 when the first diamond was found along the banks of the Orange River. In the next fifteen years, Africa became the leading supplier of diamonds in the world, exporting more than nations such as India and Brazil. The discovery of these highly valued and highly demanded diamonds brought an immense amount of trade into Africa, a continent known for its poverty. One diamond company in particular, De Beers, instantly became interested in African diamond mines. By 1888, the company controlled the entire market, connecting African diamonds to wealthy humans all over the world. In 1929, De Beers began marketing diamonds to the middle class as well and associated the diamond with engagement and marriage, increasing the demand of the diamond worldwide. Though the company felt they had a hold on the market, they were wrong. Soon Lebanese traders discovered the enormous profit they could make by smuggling diamonds out of the country. As a result illicit mining and trading increased throughout countries in Africa and especially in Sierra Leone. To make matters worse, the government seemed to overlook the problem, if not sometimes encourage it. One Sierra Leone leader, Siaka Stevens, encouraged illicit trading to gain more control over the diamond mines. Succeeding leaders did the same, and with a corrupt government, the country of Sierra Leone was very vulnerable for a rebellion. Instead of bringing the continent of Africa out of its years of poverty stricken hardship, the discovery of diamonds in Africa only brought more of a curse as it fueled civil war, created political instability between governments, and caused unimaginable human suffering for African citizens.
For the past 112 years, De Beers has dominated the diamond industry. Established in April 1880 by Cecil John Rhodes and his partner, Charles Dunell Rudd, De Beers rose to prominence, merging with Barney Barnato’s Kimberley Central Mining company and acquiring more and more mines (Hauser, 2002). The ...
Some of the highest producing diamond mines are countries in Africa. Countries that had some of the highest rate of conflict were Angola, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. The ...
Up until the 19th century, diamonds were considered to be one of the most prized possessions that could be found, hence they were reserved only for those who are the heads of royal families. However, this all changed when English-born businessman Cecil John Rhodes bought up diamond fields in South Africa as well as claims to the diamonds and began the company ‘De Beers’, named after two brothers who had found deposits of the commodity on their land, which made it possible for the general public to own a piece of this precious stone – at a high price.
An estimated 1 million diamond miners in Africa earn less than $1 a dollar a day (Brilliant Earth n.d.) Children as young as 8 forgo school for daily wages ranging between $0.15- $0.60 (The International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School 2009). According to Adele Farquhar, a man fighting for legal ownership of a diamond mine, the problem isn’t people mining for precious diamonds, it’s those buying the diamonds originating in conflict areas; "People think it's a Zimbabwe problem but they forget that there is huge international complicity. You can't stop the Zimbabweans until you stop the money men. The people in Zimbabwe are getting next to nothing for these diamonds. The guy with the pick and shovel is literally earning $5. The guy to go and find is the one making $1,000. Go and look at the money and see who else is benefiting. That's why there's no momentum to stop this thing” (Cahill 2009). According to Time, the owner of the mines usually takes around 70% of the value when diamonds are sold to
People are now starting to take small steps in an effort to eliminate conflict diamonds. Recently, the entire diamond industry made clear to the international community of its intolerance towards blood diamonds. An example of this is their introduction of the Kimberley Process, a certification system for tracking the diamond’s origin. The United States is currently working on legislation for the Clean Diamond Act, in order to ban any diamonds from an unidentified origin. Both of these policies are attempts to create a paper trail for the diamonds and to eliminate conflict diamonds from the ma...
In 1867, huge diamond deposits were accidently discovered near the Orange River in South Africa. Cecil John Rhodes arrived at Kimberley Mine in 1874 and eventually began purchasing claims in the surrounding mines. Rhodes established DeBeers Consolidated Mines in 1888 to manage his assets. DeBeers allowed Rhodes and other suppliers to control the all-inclusive supply of diamonds by setting high market prices and regulating the output of diamonds into the market (Spar, 2006: 197). Ernest Oppenheimer gained control of DeBeers in 1929, after the death of Rhodes in 1902. The Central Selling Organisation...
According to Mike Peng in Global Strategy at page 229, it all started when Cecil John Rhodes founded De Beers Mines in South Africa in 1875. Rhodes is said to have realized that, as South Africa was the then only significant producer, the supply of diamonds needed to be limited and controlled. The diggers or producers had little control over the quality or the quantity of their output and the buyers or merchants had no control over the security of supply. According to Peng, “Rhodes’s solution was to create an ongoing agreement between a single producer and a single buyer in which the supply was kept low and prices high.” (Peng, 2006)
Santarossa, B. (2004, January 13). Diamonds: Adding lustre to the Canadian economy. Retrieved November 06, 2017, from https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-621-m/11-621-m2004008-eng.htm
In “ “Blood Diamonds” and Africa’s Armed Conflicts in the Post – Cold War Era, “ Orogun (2004) said that diamonds are referring as “clean stones”. This article explains about the black market is really happening in African. I am using this article to support how the black market of diamond trades is still not regulated, and they defined it as “licit” trade.
The mining industry is a billion dollar industry that has been around for years. Miners and business insiders know exactly how lucrative the business is. In calendar your 2016 a net profit of $US20 billion was the aggregated profit for global miners. Mining comes at a cost and the deaths of miners is one of the costs. One of the most disastrous mining accidents took over 1500 lives. Still over the world needs miners. To prevent accidents the mining industry has stricter safety regulations. At the same time the industry has also had technological improvements. The stricter safety regulations and technological improvements in mining are
Coal mining can benefit humans as well as it supports the economy in many ways. Coal mining provides a lot of jobs for local communities. It provides over 7 million jobs worldwide.
Mining is the process or industry of obtaining minerals from the earth. Topics in this paper I’ll be specifically discussing are pros and cons of mining, structures of a mine, mining in general, California gold rush, diamonds in Africa, and comparison of diamond and gold mines.
In our days, mining for resources is inevitable. The resources we need are valuable in everyday life. Such resources mined up are coal, copper, gold, silver, and sand. However, mining poses environmental risks that can degrade the quality of soil and water, which can end up effecting us humans if not taken care of and many of the damages are irreversible once they have occurred.