LETTER TO THE EDITOR — Peripheral players slow diamond play

The discovery of diamonds in the Northwest Territories, while old news in Canada, is virtually unheralded in the U.S. This development will change within a few weeks when Dia Met Minerals begins trading on the American Stock Exchange and curiosity takes hold of the population there. What will they be told?

The recent diamond stock metal blues that have depressed Canadian speculative markets came about because of disappointing results from highly touted, peripheral players in the Northwest Territories. (It looks as if the initial Dia Met-staked claims do hold the best targets.) Then there is the general doom and gloom of the environmentalists’ victory in blocking the Windy Craggy project in northern British Columbia. How about worries that native land claims will shut down development?

Let’s examine the fears and the facts. First, the Dia Met-BHP development is about 200 km from any native settlement and the area has never been central to subsistence hunting and fishing, let alone recreation use. The area is a treeless barren tundra — a flat, featureless, boulder-strewn Arctic desert with uninviting, mostly shallow, permafrost melt sloughs and lakes that are home to hordes of biting insects.

Natives are becoming involved in the jobs created and any negotiations for a cut of government royalties won’t hold up development because it is in the government’s best interests that the project proceeds.

Second, the environmentalists have no pristine rivers or special habitats for endangered species to protect, so they have no rallying cry and no recreation allies on whom to draw for support.

So what about the five commercially minable pipes (open-pit mines) that are planned to feed a super mine on the Dia Met-BHP property? Two pipes that have been bulk-sampled are right up there with the richest in the world, while the other three mines are coming in as predicted. Assuming routine permits are forthcoming, the stockpiling of ore is only months away.

It would seem that the tail (the periphery) has been wagging the dog (the main discovery), causing the current market slump in diamond stocks. Wayne Fipke, Kelowna, B.C.