Consulting

Crisis Management

Managing safety in extreme environments begins in the planning stage and continues into the field. From risk management plans to detailed mapping, to innovative offline apps and real-life first aid training, Austere can highlight and mitigate areas of concern for your wilderness activities. Our experienced wilderness risk consultants will implement dynamic, functional and achievable plans to keep your team safe and the activity on track. Your tailored safety and risk management plan can be delivered as an offline, customised desktop Risk Management Portal and app.

Emergency Planning

Austere is often engaged to develop emergency plans for remote activities. The plans we produce are not ‘off the shelf’ plans, but rather are customised to the dates, region, weather, and nature of your activity. All plans are written to include primary and secondary options and involve consultation with local emergency services, rescue agencies, fixed and rotary-wing evacuation providers, and other relevant parties to ensure accuracy. Plans are also written in an easy to follow style for quick reference in the event of an emergency.

Document review

Good documentation is critical to not only running a safe and successful remote activity but also for protecting yourself in the event of an investigation. A documentation audit is sometimes required by insurance companies, or from the client for their best business practice procedures. The main advantage of an external audit is gaining an experienced, unbiased opinion of your activity's documentation system to determine what is being done well, and where improvements need to be made. Austere can often help a client navigate challenges of documentation for remote areas, including:

• Temporary or seasonal teams (coming together for the activity, then disbanding)
• Offline access in remote areas
• Mixed teams with members from different organizations
• Insurance audits

Insurance audits

On-location activity audits can be arranged to inspect an activity during normal operations and potentially identify areas to improve safety to participants. By inviting an experienced Austere consultant to inspect your activity, you are increasing the chances of potential risk being identified. Experienced managers and team members often miss critical points due to familiarity with the activity and having a set of 'fresh eyes' inspect the activity can often detect new sources for improvement.

Activity mapping

Professional map products can be produced for a range of activities in environments that are; not mapped, poorly mapped, or where the features on available public map products such as Google Maps or OSM fall short of what your team needs. Maps can be produced by our field consultants on-location, or from GIS data collected by you. We can also geo-reference drone images to produce a highly detailed custom map product. Map products can be delivered in a range of formats to suit your requirements, including:

• printable PDF format
• geo-referenced PDF for Avenza Maps application
• Garmin GPS compatible .img map files
• Custom offline web/mobile application with forms for your team to collect field information and update your map in real-time

Communication surveys

Communication surveys can be incorporated into activity mapping, or conducted as a stand-alone service. By deploying an Austere consultant into the field ahead of your activity, managers and supervisors will know in advance where communication dead-spots exist and can modify plans and equipment accordingly. Austere can survey and map communications for:

• Cellular (mobile)
• HF/VHF/UHF simplex and duplex radio
• Satellite communications (Iridium/Starlink)
• Wide-area Wi-Fi
• Low-bandwidth, long-range radio (LoRa, LoRaWAN, HALOW, IoT)