RESOLVE launches Peace Diamonds™ Restoration Initiative

RESOLVE, a non-governmental organization forging sustainable solutions to critical social, health, and environmental challenges, announces the Peace Diamonds™ Restoration Initiative to rehabilitate land degraded by artisanal and small-scale diamond mining in developing economy countries and address problems associated with abandoned, water-filled pits and depleted soil resulting from former artisanal diamond mining.
“The initiative has launched in Africa, starting in Sierra Leone, which emerged from a history of armed conflict in which diamonds played a role. Sierra Leone and other mining nations face a legacy of abandoned pits, degraded lands, and unhealthy, contaminated water. After miners leave a site, the people who inhabit the neighboring villages lose arable land needed for basic farming. They also face insect-borne diseases and other safety hazards, such as drownings, caused by flooded pits,” the NGO said in a press release in early May.
Through the Peace Diamonds Restoration Initiative, RESOLVE field staff work together with national and regional governments, local leaders, and other community members to turn abandoned pits into arable land for farming and other sustainable uses while improving public health. Additionally, program leaders prioritize areas that often lack regular access to international development or public support, where self-sustaining projects are needed.
The initiative also promotes gender equity at each site by promoting women’s participation in early consultations and decision-making and offering entrepreneurial workshops for women and girls who, ultimately, become the primary stewards of the land following restoration.
To date, during the pilot phase of the project, 90 abandoned diamond pits have been filled and rehabilitated into arable land using the initiative’s model. The pilot projects in Sierra Leone have yielded soil, water, air, and biodiversity benefits while contributing to new food supplies and economic opportunities for rural farmers. The initiative will now scale its efforts throughout Sierra Leone, and, over the next five years, to the Democratic Republic of Congo and other countries.