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“I’m extremely optimistic about the future of this industry,” says Paul Eton, an emerging talent and fresh voice in the newly revitalized world of the diamond business. For an industry that has been hit harder than many during the global downturn, these are encouraging words indeed. While all businesses can be portrayed as political pawns, it’s harder to imagine one more highly charged than that of the South African diamond community.

The BEE or the Black Economic Empowerment initiative has been trying to redress the inequality issues inherent in the mining industry for the last decade. Since 2001, black representation in management positions of the industry has more than doubled, and according to Mining Weekly is close to 30%. Of course the recession has slowed the initiatives for both women and blacks down, but now things are starting to rebound. Sandra Barmiest, CEO of Land plane, in speaking to Mining Weekly, recently suggested that “training and development should start at the graduate level” and “skills development and employment equity are both fundamental to corporate success.”

But, recently it was also disclosed that black ownership in the mining industry is still far below targets set out 5 years ago, leading some to speculate that the diamond industry, along with others might be nationalized. The balance of business, community and social responsibility is still difficult to achieve, especially in such a lucrative and tightly controlled sector.

Paul Eton, having himself set up charities to help the poor communities of Soweto, believes more companies need to be held accountable for helping their local environment; this sentiment was also echoed by an undisclosed industry insider, commenting on a leaked document (about industry inequality) in a recent Mining news piece, “Companies are required to prove their own efforts in improving a mining community. This has led to many companies doing the same things instead of pooling resources and addressing a wider variety of community needs.”