This achievement came despite the fact that the team members often work in remote and inhospitable terrain, dealing with swamps and heavy brush, and sometimes packing heavy equipment as they undertake geological mapping, claim staking, sediment sampling, bulk sampling, ground and airborne geophysics, core drilling and sample processing.

De Beers as a whole recorded safety improvements in 2016. The group’s total recordable case frequency rate (all types of incidents) was 0.41 versus the target of 0.45, a 23% improvement on the previous year.

The lost time injury (LTI) frequency rate was 0.09, a 36% improvement on the previous year’s performance of 0.14. Thirty-one LTIs were recorded, against 53 in 2015.

In Canada, Julie Kong, senior exploration manager for De Beers, said: “The exploration team has a strong safety culture. We instil this culture to our extended ‘family’ during our projects. It is important that everyone returns safely at the end of the day.”

Project manager John Delgaty listed effective and timely communication, managers actively participating with each team member in the office and field, pre-field training workshops, and close relationships with contractors as being among the keys to the team’s success.