"Cartier's use of images of Amazon tribe prompts Indigenous advocates to allege hypocrisy", 15 May 2023

...Until two months ago, Cartier’s website showed Yanomami children playing in a green field.

The French luxury jewelry brand said it was working to promote the culture of the Indigenous people and protect the rainforest where they live...But the project that the site described protecting the Amazon never took place. And Cartier published the photo without the approval of Yanomami leadership, violating the beliefs of a people who had been living in almost total isolation until they were contacted by outsiders in the 1970s.

...A]dvertising by one of the world’s biggest jewelers with images of an Indigenous people devastated by illegal gold mining has some complaining of greenwashing...“How can a gold jewelry company, which we, the Yanomami people, are against, use the image of the Yanomami?” asked Júnior Hekurari, a member of the Indigenous group and head of the Yanomami’s health council...

Cartier says it does not buy illegally mined gold, but Yanomami leaders have urged people not to buy gold jewelry at all, regardless of its source, because demand for the precious metal drives gold prices up and draws miners into their territory...

For many Indigenous groups, a corporation or philanthropy using a photo of them requires formal permission. The photo of the children on the website violated the Yanomami’s right to prior, free, and informed consent, according to the Roraima Indigenous Council, a grassroots umbrella organization, citing the International Labour Organization’s Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, which Brazil signed.

Hekurari said his people need international cooperation, but his organization would never accept money from a jewelry company...

Cartier declined to comment on the Yanomami’s appeal for people to stop buying gold jewelry but, when contacted by The Associated Press in late March, Cartier removed the picture and the project description. Funds had been allocated to a forest-preservation project but ended up being used to acquire medical equipment to fight COVID-19 among the Yanomami, the company said. A donation worth $74,200 was made in June 2020.

The inaccurate description “was a regrettable oversight on our part, and it was addressed immediately after it was brought to our attention,” the company said...