SOS Bushmen

The project is located in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, where Botswana's High Court ruled last December that hundreds of San bushmen had been wrongly evicted and should be allowed to return.

Gem Diamonds said it hoped to build a mine as a result of buying Gope Exploration Company, which suspended rights to a kimberlite deposit in central Botswana, the world's biggest diamond-producing nation.

"The relatively high value of the diamonds is strategically attractive to Gem Diamonds," it said, adding that a sample parcel of 3,400 carats was recently valued at $121 per carat.

The firm said after updating an existing feasibility study, it would probably apply for a mining licence, hold talks about a government stake in the mine and consult with communities.

Pressure groups who had helped the bushmen file a lawsuit had accused the government of evicting the bushmen to allow diamond mining, but De Beers and the government denied this.

The government said they had wanted to help integrate the bushmen into society and give them access to healthcare and education.

The court ruling said bushmen had been wrongly moved from ancestral hunting grounds they had lived on for 20,000 years.

"Gem Diamonds is committed to engaging with the representatives of the San people in relation to the development of the Gope mine," it said.

In a separate statement, De Beers said it was selling its 50 percent interest in Gope as part of a restructuring exercise to dispose of marginal assets.

"This announcement reaffirms De Beers' long-held position that the Gope deposit did not meet De Beers' scale criteria necessary for development," it said.