A world leader in marine diamond mining De Beers Marine Namibia is owned by De Beers (70%) and Namdeb (30%). The Company mines off the south west coast of Namibia in the Atlantic 1 licence area of Namdeb, as the exclusive contractor. DBMN operates a fleet of five mining vessels, of which it owns four and time charters one. The vessels are mv Debmar Atlantic, mv Debmar Pacific, mv !Gariep, mv Grand Banks and mv Ya Toivo. The mining system used on four of the vessels is airlift-drill technology, with a 6.8 meter diameter drill bit working in overlapping circles on the seafloor. The fifth vessel uses a 220 ton track-mounted crawler. Mining takes place on the ocean floor at water depths ranging from 90 to 140 meters.
	De Beers Marine Namibia was first registered as a Namibian Company in 1985, but only became fully operational in Namibia in 2001 when the Namibian Government and De Beers concluded an agreement. Most of the functions of the previous De Beers Marine, which operated from South Africa, were moved to Namibia.   Sustainable investment in the marine diamond industry by Namdeb and De Beers, the two shareholders in De Beers Marine Namibia, has paid rewards for the Company and for Namdeb, for whom it mines the Atlantic 1 concession area. Supported by sound business management principles, a performance driven culture and commitment from management and employees, this investment has enabled the Company to improve its production output by 72 per cent from 2001 to 2005. History was made in the Namibian diamond industry in 2005, when Namdeb production from marine resources overtook production from land for the first time. In this respect, De Beers Marine Namibia became the biggest diamond miner in Namibia, producing a total of 922 000 carats. The Company employs 565 human gems, of which about 90 are based at its head office in Windhoek, and the rest are sea-going employees. The vessels operate on a twenty-eight days on, twenty-eight days off shift system. The rehabilitation of marine mining environments occur naturally, unlike the rehabilitation of land-based mines, which takes place once the mining has been completed in a particular area. DBMN’s environmental research focuses on greater knowledge of the natural variability of the environment, understanding the consequences of marine mining, and monitoring changes over time. Although the key impacts of marine mining are seabed related, this is not the sole focus of De Beers Marine Namibia’s environmental management; all aspects of operations are carefully considered and managed through the implementation of an Environmental Management System certified to the international standard ISO14001, in pursuance of the highest levels of environmental management. The philosophy of the company, as embodied in the company’s Environmental Policy, is to continuously improve its environmental management practices through monitoring of the key characteristics of operations and thereby reducing any negative impacts resulting from operations. De Beers Marine Namibia continues to increase its procurement of goods and services in Namibia. The Company’s Social Responsibility Committee makes donations to worthy causes in all the regions of Namibia. The Namibianisation of the DBMN workforce is a key initiative that is being driven at the highest level. The current percentage of Namibians in the workforce is 70%, which is a major increase from the 18% at the time of the migration to Namibia in 2002. The Company has launched a number of initiatives aimed at achieving the target of a 90% Namibian workforce by 2008. These include supporting Namibian training authorities to achieve international maritime compliance, sponsoring Namibian students through a bursary scheme, enhancing the company’s image to attract local skills, and improving stakeholder engagement. Diversity and Affirmative Action flows from the Namibianisation strategy, and following the results of a diversity audit conducted in 2004, a diversity strategy is being developed. The threat of HIV/Aids is being addressed at a strategic level within De Beers Marine Namibia.  Since 2004, employees and their life partners have access to free anti-retroviral therapy (ART). The ART project was launched in May 2004. This is supported by an active voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) campaign, coupled with education and awareness campaigns driven by peer educators active throughout the organisation.  Regular Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) Surveys are held to determine the success of the campaigns, and two-yearly saliva prevalence surveys are conducted to measure the prevalence of the disease within the organisation.