# Ethically produced ### Ethically produced In 2021 we started our own small scale crystal mining operations and we are in progress of growing this new branch of our business. When mining ourselves we have total control of the environmental impacts caused and our workers are hired under regular labor contracts being provided with all legally required benefits and safety measures. #### **Illegal and informal lapidary workshops** All carved and polished mineral and gemstone products have been produced in so-called lapidary workshops. We do not know of any legal and formal lapidary workshops in Peru other than our own one. In general terms lapidary workshops in Peru are not registered companies. They are not even registered as businesses with the municipality or the tax officials and it is commonplace that such workshops do pay bribes to municipality workers in order to remain undetected. Their entire business is cash based in order to avoid tax payments. The lapidary workers are hired without written contracts and do not receive any labor benefits like vacations, health benefits or retirement payments etc. Therefore nearly all carved gemstone products from any other Peruvian exporter have been produced working through such illegal workshops. {% embed url="" %} Gemrock Peru does not work with any other lapidary workshops. #### --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://gemrocknft.gitbook.io/whitepaper/about-gemrock/what-makes-us-unique/ethically-produced.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.