Nathalie Kelley launches Pure Earth’s 2025 Pure Gold Public sale necklace
Actress and environmental activist Nathalie Kelley has designed a bespoke jewelry piece for Pure Earth’s 2025 Pure Gold Public sale, created to boost consciousness of mercury-free gold mining and accountable sourcing.
The necklace, constructed from 18-carat Fairmined gold, was produced in collaboration with Peruvian jewelry designer Andrea José. The gold was sourced from AMATAF, a women-led community of artisanal miners in Madre de Dios, Peru, who’ve labored with Pure Earth to remove mercury use in mining.
Kelley, who’s of Quechua descent, joined Pure Earth’s management council earlier this yr and has campaigned to guard the Peruvian Amazon and its indigenous communities.
The necklace contains a jaguar pendant symbolising the “resilience of the Amazon”, with an Umba sapphire and two recycled yellow sapphires representing the colors of the rainforest at dawn.
Kelley mentioned the design aimed to focus on the potential for moral gold mining practices. Mercury, recognized by the World Well being Organisation as one of many high 10 chemical compounds of main public well being concern, is extensively utilized in artisanal and small-scale gold mining, which accounts for as much as 15% of worldwide gold manufacturing.
Pure Earth, a non-profit organisation primarily based in New York, has labored for greater than a decade to assist mercury-free mining, construct sustainable provide chains and reforest land affected by gold extraction. In Madre de Dios, the charity and its companions have planted greater than 10,000 native bushes throughout 10 hectares.
The 2025 Pure Gold Public sale will function items donated by greater than 20 worldwide jewelry designers, with proceeds supporting Pure Earth’s world air pollution clean-up tasks and its work with small-scale miners.
She mentioned: “As somebody with Peruvian and Quechua roots, this work is near my coronary heart. I’m proud to make use of my voice to assist Pure Earth, an organisation that honours native management and provides actual, tangible options to stop mercury air pollution. Gold doesn’t have to come back on the expense of poisoned rivers and misplaced forests. By supporting miners utilizing mercury-free strategies, we are able to remodel the trade.”