From a Betta fish brooch to a “dragon’s trove” of zircon eggs, here are seven pieces that’ve stuck with Associate Editor Lauren McLemore.
2015 Nobel Peace Prize Made of Fairmined Gold
The Alliance for Responsible Mining and the Norwegian Mint teamed up in hopes that a Fairmined medal will bring awareness to issues faced by artisanal and small-scale gold miners across the globe.
Envigado, Colombia--The recipients of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize will be the first to receive a medal made of certified Fairmined gold.
The Norwegian Mint, which produces the medal, teamed up with the Alliance for Responsible Mining in an effort to show that the problems faced by artisanal and small-scale gold miners across the globe can be transformed into positive stories.
ARM
The gold used for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize is from the Fairmined-certified Iquira Cooperation in Colombia, which obtained its certification in 2014 and has since been exporting gold to international markets, ARM said.
“This initiative with Fairmined is not only about the Peace Prize medal or our own business,” said Ole Bjorn Fausa, CEO of coin producing company Samlerhuset, which owns the Mint of Norway. “It is about increasing the focus on these issues within the whole coin industry, so that more companies start using gold from certified small-scale mines. This way we can gradually improve the working conditions for the miners, while at the same time safeguarding the environment.”
The 2015 Nobel Peace Prize will be presented Thursday to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution, a campaign of civil resistance that led to the ousting of longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.
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