The environmental restrictions on building a new mine in North America are crippling, according to many miners. Yet a corollary of this view is that North America is setting the standards towards which the rest of the world is gradually moving. Environmental groups complain that some global mining companies take advantage of the laxer norms in many developing countries to act overseas as they would not at home. The pressure is thus on the mining companies to observe higher standards in those countries. In the Northwest Territories, one of Canada's most sensitive areas, two mining companies, BHP and Rio Tinto, have had to jump a remarkable series of hurdles to get permission to develop diamond mines. The prize is a new source of high-quality, conflict-free diamonds. Their story reveals the kind of process miners may eventually have to go through if they want to develop a new mine anywhere in the world.