Botswana is set to reap a significant economic reward from its latest diamond discovery, driven by visionary beneficiation initiatives and cutting-edge investment frameworks that prioritise national benefit, localisation, and community prosperity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second-largest diamond ever found – a rough 2,492-carat stone – has been unearthed in Botswana at a mine operated by the Canadian company Lucara Diamond. The diamond, estimated at $160m(R2.8billion) was unearthed in Botswana at Karowe mine, which is jointly owned by Lucara and the Botswana government, with a 70-30% ownership structure, and could earn the Southern African country of 2.6 million people almost R1 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Valued at approximately $160 million (R2.8 billion), this find is the largest since the 3,106-carat Cullinan diamond in 1905. The Cullinan diamond was cut into several stones, many of which are part of the controversial British Crown Jewels. The British Crown Jewels have ignited a heated debate among politicians and fuelled demands from African activists, who passionately advocate for the repatriation of these treasures, sparking tensions between cultural heritage and colonial legacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Karowe mine has a history of significant discoveries, including the 1,758-carat Sewelo diamond, purchased by luxury group LVMH in 2019, and the 1,111-carat Lesedi La Rona, sold to British jeweller Laurence Graff for $53 million in 2017. Botswana is the second-largest producer of natural diamonds in the world, and the Karowe mine has yielded multiple diamonds over 1,000 carats in the past decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beneficiation of Diamonds<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Botswana’s government has implemented diamond beneficiation initiatives, including domestic sorting, valuation, and trading through the state-owned Diamond Trading Company, and established downstream facilities for cutting, polishing, and manufacturing through strategic investments within the Southern African nation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Botswana is set to reap a significant economic reward from its latest diamond discovery, driven by visionary beneficiation initiatives and cutting-edge investment frameworks that prioritise national benefit, localisation, and community prosperity. The second-largest diamond ever found – a rough 2,492-carat stone – has been unearthed in Botswana at a mine operated by the Canadian company…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":694,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,41,11,29],"tags":[],"coauthors":[40],"class_list":["post-693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-fulufhelo-lloyd-nedohe","category-latest-news","category-mining-esg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esgfrontiers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esgfrontiers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esgfrontiers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esgfrontiers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esgfrontiers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=693"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/esgfrontiers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":696,"href":"https:\/\/esgfrontiers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions\/696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esgfrontiers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esgfrontiers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esgfrontiers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esgfrontiers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=693"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esgfrontiers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}