It's ironic that fairly traded Maya gold is in the news today, because that's probably as far as it's possible to be from the 'Maya gold' news story that is usually in the news: see the story about Sipakapa and the exploitation of gold reserves in Guatemala at the Marlin mine.

The leftfield contribution on the exploitation of Guatemalan gold is all about chocolate. In the Observer there was a piece today 28-05-2006 about the case of Green & Blacks (recently bought by Cadbury) and its organic and fairly traded Maya Gold chocolate.

Definitely worth a read, it's interesting that they are based in Belize and characterise the Guatemalan experience of fairtrade organic as being all about pesticides, growing citrus fruit and international exploitation. Anyone got any contributions? The Fairtrade 2004 conference report (in Spanish) by Rights Action, Care Guatemala, Oxfam and the Cooperacion Espanola is certainly a great starting point to the debate.

It is certainly interesting though, to hear more about Craig Sams's experience and his ideas for changing the Fairtrade model. I can't help thinking that an insight into the human stories behind such human ideas can only help our understanding.