I'm probably not the only one to have been scrambling to figure out what to do for my mother for Mother's Day. You want to give her something nice and ethical -- not jewelry made from gold mining that has poisoned communities and destroyed livelihoods.

Toby Pomeroy's craft-jewelry studio is a signer of the Bristol Bay Protection Pledge and the No Dirty Gold campaign's Golden Rules.  In this guest blog post, he explains why he signed the pledge.

I signed on to the Bristol Bay pledge as an action to express my commitment that we must, as responsible members of the family of man, act consistently with the restoration and preservation of the bounty we have inherited so that our children's children can marvel at the same wonders that have been here millennia before us. 

UPDATE (2/11): The scorecard and grade for Jostens has been corrected on 2/11/10, to reflect their signing of the Bristol Bay Protection Pledge.

When consumers buy jewelry, they don't want their purchase to underwrite environmental destruction; they don't want to support throwing people out of their homes; they don't want their wedding rings to cause the pollution of drinking water.

But consumers have little reliable assurance about the origins of their jewelry purchases. 

Although there have been several steps in the right direction in the six years since the No Dirty Gold campaign was launched.

Today we released Tarnished Gold? Assessing the jewelry industry's progress on the ethical sourcing of metals.  It evaluates the efforts made by jewelers towards responsible sourcing of precious metals.  It is based on responses to a survey sent to the jewelers that had signed on to No Dirty Gold's Golden Rules of Responsible Mining by mid-February 2009, and ot other large jewelry retailers who sold jewelry worth more than $100 million.

This is great news for Bristol Bay, and the fisherfolk and communities that rely upon it.

This week Sears/Kmart, Blue Nile and Ultra Stores signed the No Dirty Gold campaign's "Golden Rules" for more responsible mining.

This brings the total number of jewelry retail signatories up to 60. Altogether, these jewelry retailers represent over $1.3 billion in annual US jewelry sales, or nearly a quarter of the total.