With the extraordinary growth of Chinese interest in natural resources assets there, investment in Africa is rarely out of the headlines.  The gemstone industry is one that presents enormous excitement and potential, but potently illustrates that political and legal risk management is much more than business theory on the African continent.

Bruce Bridges, Bridges Exploration (Kenya) and Tsavorite USA, will offer a rare insight into the realities of doing business in East Africa, sharing the experience of his family's century old mining and gemstone business in Kenya.  In addition to the technical and commercial challenges of running a mining operation and international trading business, the family has had to face corruption, intimidation and physical violence - culminating in the murder of Bruce's father, Campbell Bridges, in 2009.

Campbell Bridges, renowned as the father of gemstone mining in Kenya, brought the first tanzanite to the US for identification and was a consultant to Tiffany & Co.  In the early 1960s, he discovered tsavorite, a rare green gemstone, found only in East Africa, which is sought after by collectors and jewellers all over the world.  Bruce has been in the gem industry his entire life, from mining, sorting, grading and cutting, to marketing and sales.  Working side by side with his father, he has experienced first hand the development of coloured gemstone mining in East Africa, through its heights in the 1980s and 1990s, to the current erosion of law and order which is threatening to undermine the entire industry.

Bruce will discuss the political, social and economic factors affecting businesses in Africa, and how natural resources companies can manage these intrinsic risks, in the face of escalating social unrest and political turmoil in many countries.  Illegal mining presents enormous threats to the gemstone industry - highlighted by the trade in "blood diamonds" in the 1990s.  As demand in China and Asia for coloured gemstones is rising rapidly, it is of utmost importance to know their source and provenance. 

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