The recent release of the Leonardo DiCaprio film “Blood Diamond” has sparked a war of words over conflict diamonds, stones that are mined often by unregulated labor under harsh conditions and then sold in order to buy weapons and support fighting.

The diamond industry credits the Kimberley Process, a voluntary 71-nation certification of origin scheme for rough diamonds established in 2000, with reducing the number of conflict diamonds to less than 1% of all diamonds sold today. Still, illicit diamonds remain a problem, allegedly continuing to fuel rebel armies in the Republic of Congo and over its Angolan border, according to the nongovernmental organizations Global Witness and Amnesty International.

But besides conflicts, diamonds fund the war on poverty in Africa. Millions of Africans directly earn their living from the diamond trade. Botswana, for example, the world’s largest diamond producer, derives over 75% of its gross domestic product directly from the diamond trade and has achieved the highest per capita income on the continent. The approach to take toward the illicit diamond trade, therefore, is for the industry’s producers and consumers to recognize that diamonds are integral to Africa’s economic development and to work to bring that trade under control. Doing so would enable Africa to manage its own natural resources and continue to combat poverty and improve the lives of its people.

Contrary to Hollywood’s view, not everyone in the diamond industry is blind to the plight of Africans. I am a member of the diamond industry, and while I am not African, I care deeply about the fair treatment of people and the environment.

One step toward solving the problem of conflict diamonds would be to establish a fair trade regime for diamonds, just as the world has embraced fair trade coffee, fair trade cacao, and fair trade cotton. Essentially, fair trade is a set of standards endorsed by the Bonn-based nongovernmental Fair Trade Labeling Organization, known as FLO, and called Transfair in America. FLO ensures that commodities are harvested under strict environmental, labor, and community development standards. Indeed, in the cases of coffee, cacao, and cotton, fair trade has been a boon to the collectives that operate under its umbrella. Why not fair trade diamonds?

Most of the illicitly traded diamonds are alluvial, meaning mined in riverbeds and waterways, as opposed to the large-scale mining done with heavy equipment in places like Botswana, which is more visible and therefore controlled both by the industry itself and governments.

It is the alluvial diamonds that require the most control. These diamonds should be mined under fair trade standards and could be monitored by the watchdog NGOs so concerned about conflict diamonds. Such regulation would improve the working conditions of miners, rehabilitate the environment, and ensure that local communities receive direct financial benefit from the mines operated on their land.

On a fair trade diamond mine, Djimon Honsou’s character in “Blood Diamond” would have received a fair wage; there would have been strict safety and health standards at the mining site, including access to medical help; there would have been no child labor; the land would have been rehabilitated after the mine’s capacity was exhausted, and the local community would have received a percentage of the profits to use for community development projects. A local nongovernmental organization approved by FLO or its affiliates would have enforced the regulations. That pink diamond Mr. Honsou’s character found would have gone a long way to helping his people.

Extraction does not equal exploitation. If clear rules of engagement are established and policed, the diamond industry can be a blessing. That is why my company is seriously pursuing creating a fair trade mining operation in Sierra Leone, currently the least developed nation in the world according to the United Nations, and elsewhere.

Any idea that treats the people who dig for alluvial diamonds — over 100,000 in Sierra Leone and by some accounts over 2 million all over Africa — with fairness and dignity deserves to be fast-tracked. We are talking with FLO to do just that.

But there are many obstacles, from local corruption and mind-numbing bureaucracy to a tangle of nongovernmental organizations and international donors with competing political agendas. Our efforts in Sierra Leone have been stalled. The deadlock of endless committees to bring fair-trade diamond mining to fruition faster needs to be broken. Consumers need to play a part, too. They must realize that higher standards come at a higher price and be willing to pay more for a fair-trade mined diamond.

All of us directly or indirectly part of the diamond business need to get creative and take action. We need to work with FLO and other third-party monitoring organizations to fast- track fair-trade mining standards, prod the numerous international donors and NGOs operating in places like Sierra Leone to get out of committees and work closer with the industry itself, strengthen the Kimberley Process to completely eradicate the flow of conflict diamonds, and assure the public that paying more for a fair trade diamond actually will improve the lives of Africans.

The diamond industry needs the support and participation of all those so touched by the film “Blood Diamond” — the press, organizations, governments, and consumers — to help solve the problem of poverty in Africa.

Mr. Twersky is vice president of Finesse Diamonds Corp. in New York City and can be reached at alex@finessediamonds.com.