Who would want to live in a country where 70% of the population are living on less than 70 pence per day? A country described as 'the most dangerous on the planet Earth.' Well this is the case for many people living in Sierra Leone, a country which attributes 94% of its exports to Diamonds. It has been documented that 'blood diamonds' were the cause of the civil war here, where many lives lost were lost. However, diamonds are a positive resource for this struggling nation because they can be sold as a commodity to provide work and money to support families living in this unfortunate country. The quality of the diamonds coming from this country is held in high esteem by jewellers worldwide which is why demand for their export is high. In the past, rebels have made upward of $250 million dollars a year from the mines. However, the Sierra Leone government has placed a ban on such activities meaning …show more content…
These are known as secondary deposits. Diamonds are also synthetically produced from graphite to do Mother Nature's work for her. It is said that these diamonds are 5 times stronger than regular diamonds. Unfortunately mining is open to corruption and smuggling, but Kimberlite mining would allow more control over production. However, the capital needed to start such a project is expensive and probably not feasible for a country such as Sierra Leone. A kimberlite pipe can be placed beneath shallow lakes and inactive volcanic craters to access an approximate 12% of diamonds within the kimberlites itself. Millions of years ago, alluvial diamonds were swept into coastal areas and along the west coast alone there is believed to be upwards of 1.5billion carats. Having arrived from long gone river systems through the land they represent the sheer scale of diamonds available in the land. Alluvial mining for diamonds happened between 1983 -