Sand barges, Hong Kong, South China Sea. Photograph: © SAF — Coastal Care.
Excerpts;
After activists said a Chinese-run fish processing plant – that arrived in 2014 – had failed to remove a pipe accused of spewing toxic waste into the sea, local youth issued an ultimatum: Dig the pipe up, or we will. In March they did, storming the beach.
For more than two decades, few in this tiny West African nation dared to speak out. Opposing voices were silenced by arrests and killings.
Another high-profile demonstration earlier this year ended in the deaths of three protesters who had demanded the end of sand mining activities…
Gambians are now speaking up as part of a nascent environmental movement…
Read Full Article; Atlanta Black Star (12-04-2018)
China’s search for sand is destroying Mozambique’s pristine beaches; Quartz Africa (10-23-2018)
The community of Nagonha in northern Mozambique sits on a tall dune with lush greenery on the one side, and a turquoise Indian ocean on the other. It should have been the kind of unspoiled landscape that Mozambique’s growing tourism industry is beginning to take advantage of. Instead, a Chinese mining company has irrevocably tarnished the scenery, and people’s lives…
The Market For African Beach Sand: Who’s Buying, Selling And Mining It?, AFK Insider (02-17-2017)
Sand mining on beaches and in riverbeds is a source of income for unemployed Africans, but it’s often an unregulated — or under-regulated — business. Environmental impact is a growing concern…
Sand mining decimates African beaches, DW (02-15-2017)
Concrete, or Beaches? World’s Sand Running Out As Global Construction Booms; The Ecologist (05-09-2017)
A crucial component of concrete, sand is vital to the global construction industry…
Sand Wars, An Investigation Documentary, By Multi Award-Winning Filmmaker Denis Delestrac (©-2013)
Beach and dune sand mining, South Africa.”Sand is the second most consumed natural resource, after water. The construction-building industry is by far the largest consumer of this finite resource. The traditional building of one average-sized house requires 200 tons of sand; a hospital requires 3,000 tons of sand; each kilometer of highway built requires 30,000 tons of sand… A nuclear plant, a staggering 12 million tons of sand…”
