Friday, 14 June, 2024
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Honouring those who give back
Surfers make history at Wrecks and Relics
Dolphin’s continue to climb the ladder
24-page liftout Property Guide
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INSIDE
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Sad farewell to our Aido By Phil Jarratt The man with the drover’s hat and the white Santa beard sits half-hidden behind his antique music stand, strumming an acoustic guitar. You almost forget he’s there until that crackly, delicate, beautiful voice breaks into a Neil Young classic or one of his originals. This is the voice of a man who has lived and loved, felt pleasure and pain. But when it comes to Adrian “Aido” Spelt, you don’t know the half of it. I wrote those lines a few years back and they resonate through my being now as I write this tribute to my dear friend Aido, who passed away suddenly last weekend. Continued page 6
Doing what he loved. Picture: CHRIS LOFVEN
Mining for justice By Jim Fagan In Africa, or more precisely, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) a miner can pull a $10 million-dollar rough diamond out of the ground and be lucky if he gets two or three dollars for it. The times, however, are changing and the story of how a Noosa businessman is reshaping and promoting the ethical sourcing of raw diamonds in countries like DRC, Uganda and Kenya to get a better trade deal for miners and their families on world commodity markets is a fascinating one.
The businessman, Eliahi Priest (43) is director of Priest Jewellers at Noosa Civic and his interest in the plight of the miners starts way back in 2008 when Eliahi was working in the UK as director of the Institute of Security and Co-operation in Outer Space. “I was invited to a United Nations World Peace Congress in Kuala Lumpur and I heard a Congolese speaker sharing his wish to help his people and the need to bring solutions and infrastructure to all the things his country needs, particularly for the children. “When I saw him the next day, he was look-
ing very dazed and lost. His briefcase had been stolen at the airport so I helped get another passport and some money. “We became very close friends and he would call me regularly and ask, ‘when are you coming to help my people.”’ During that period of my life, I had my own problems. I was struggling to help my family and I wasn’t too sure about being able to assist. This was also about the time when I stepped back into the jewellery store with mum and dad. “One time, when I was coming back from a jewellery conference, I saw on the front page
of a magazine that a company was starting to investigate putting diamonds on a blockchain or digital ledger by which the provenance of diamonds could be proven from the mine all the way to the market.” He said the problem with African countries was that while they were among the richest in resources in the world they were also among the poorest. There was an abundance of supply of resources but the issue was the terms of trade by which these resources were delivered. Continued page 4
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