“Sand is the foundation of human construction and a fundamental ingredient in concrete, asphalt, glass and other building materials. But sand, like other natural resources, is limited and its ungoverned extraction is driving erosion, flooding, the salination of aquifers and the collapse of coastal defences…” – The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) February 2023
Forbes:
How Sand Mining Is Quietly Creating A Major Global Environmental Crisis
Excerpt:
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has partnered with Kenyan spoken word poet Beatrice Kariuki to shed light on the problems associated with sand mining, part of a wider push towards a zero waste world.
“We must redouble our efforts to build a circular economy, and take rubble to build structures anew,” Kariuki says in a new video. “Because without new thinking, the sands of time will run out.”
Sand is the second-most used resource on Earth, after water. It is often dredged from rivers, dug up along coastlines and mined. The 50 billion tonnes of sand thought to be extracted for construction every year is enough to build a nine-storey wall around the planet.
A 2022 report from UNEP, titled Sand and Sustainability: 10 Strategic Recommendations to Avert a Crisis, found that sand extraction is rising about 6 per cent annually, a rate it called unsustainable. The study outlined the scale of the problem and the lack of governance, calling for sand to be “recognized as a strategic resource” and for “its extraction and use… to be rethought…”
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Additional Reading:
Our use of sand brings us “up against the wall”, says UNEP report
Sand and Sustainability: 10 Strategic Recommendations to Avert a Crisis
The role of resource extraction in a “circular” world
Excerpt:
“Most countries don’t grow 10 km or 20 km [6-12 mi] every single decade, but Singapore does,” said William Jamieson, a postdoctoral research associate at Royal Holloway, University of London, who works on the global sand crisis.
Between 1965 and 2025, the country’s total land area increased by 28%.
Authorities in Cambodia’s Koh Kong province say they’ve approved a sand mining operation exporting to Singapore, despite an export ban imposed by national authorities a decade ago after large-scale dredging was found to be damaging riverine and coastal ecosystems.
The dredging is occurring in an area of the Trapeang Rung River that falls within the boundaries of Tatai Wildlife Sanctuary and Botum Sakor National Park.
Khlem Yonviseth, director of the Koh Kong provincial mining department, told Mongabay that the 2017 sand export ban had been lifted, and that his office had given a permit to the dredging operation and approved the exports.
Yonviseth did not respond to a request to provide documentation of the ban being lifted. Mongabay was unable to locate any official announcement regarding the ban, and the relevant national agencies did not respond to requests for comment.
Yonsiveth’s comments come after activist group Mother Nature Cambodia exposed the dredging operation in a video published July 14. In a subsequent video, published Aug. 8, the group tracked multiple cargo ships heading from Koh Kong Krao, Cambodia’s largest island, to Singapore’s Tuas Port.
“How many more tons of Cambodian sand will be lost?” asks Lisa Mean, an activist with Mother Nature Cambodia, in the latest video.
Analysis by Mongabay confirms that four of the ships identified by the group traveled to the Tuas Port, where a state-backed land reclamation project is currently underway.
Mongabay has also found that the company Yonviseth said had been given a dredging license, Catalyst Marine and Resources, is linked to Starhigh Asia Pacific, a Singaporean company that is active in sand mining operations across the region.
Using automatic identification system (AIS) data, a tracking system commonly used by large vessels to improve maritime safety, Mongabay identified the ship filmed by activists as the Maltese-flagged Densa Dolphin. It’s one of four ships that made the same journey from Cambodia to a reclamation site at the state-developed Tuas Port in Singapore between June 1 and July 26, 2026. The others are the Liberian-flagged Star Halifax, Panama-flagged HPC Atlantic, and Marshall Islands-flagged Krait.
All four ships are between 185 and 199 meters (607 and 653 feet) in length and classified as bulk carriers, a type of large merchant ship used to transport a variety of materials, including sand.
Mongabay was unable to confirm the source of the sand allegedly being delivered to the Densa Dolphin. However, photographs taken by Mother Nature Cambodia on July 2, 2026, and independently verified by Mongabay show sand mining barges operating along a stretch of the Trapeang Rung River approximately 25 kilometers (15 miles) from where the bulk carriers were anchored off Koh Kong Krao.
The activists’ photographs appear to show barges bearing the logo of Catalyst Marine and Resources, a company that’s been registered in Cambodia since December 2024.
Yonviseth, from the provincial mining department, told Mongabay that the government issued Catalyst a license to dredge on the Trapeang Rung in 2025.
Magdalena Smigaj, an Earth observation data scientist and co-author of a 2023 paper that used machine learning and satellite imagery to monitor vessel traffic on the Mekong River, conducted an independent analysis of radar imagery on the Trapeang Rung between January 2020 and July 2026. Smigaj’s analysis found vessels have been consistently active along the stretch of the river photographed by Mother Nature Cambodia since late April 2026, around the same time provincial officials attended a public event announcing the launch of Catalyst’s operations to export sand from Trapeang Rung commune to Singapore.
The stretch of the river being dredged falls within the boundaries of both Tatai Wildlife Sanctuary and Botum Sakor National Park, according to official government maps of those areas. Both are part of a network of protected areas spanning the Cardamom Mountains, one of Cambodia’s best-preserved forests and a biodiversity hotspot.
The Trapeang Rung River is home to the endangered hairy-nosed otter (Lutra sumatrana), one of the rarest and least-understood otter species in the world, and flows into one of the largest mangrove forests in mainland Southeast Asia.
Yonviseth told Mongabay that Catalyst’s dredging proposal was studied by the relevant ministries and received support from local authorities and communities.
Both the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Mines and Energy did not respond to multiple requests to comment.
Yonviseth told Mongabay that sand exports to Singapore were once again underway and had “brought many benefits to the state.”
This resumption will “further strengthen bilateral relations between the two governments,” Yonviseth said via the Telegram messaging application. “Sand extraction companies pay royalties, contribute to local community development funds, and pay customs duties and profit taxes…”
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Excerpt:
The greed for grains of sand comes at an ecological disaster and fatal human cost; murders and other associated crimes which have taken a toll on poverty-stricken communities, particularly women.
The ERC investigation, Beneath the Sands, exposes how greed for grains of sand comes at a fatal human cost: As cities rise in number and countries urbanize rapidly, sand mining-related murders and other associated crimes have taken a toll on poverty-stricken communities.
We documented sand-related crimes happening in Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Philippines and India, from tax evasion, trespassing to threats stalking activists to people caught in the crossfire between gangs known as ‘sand mafias.’
Finally, we look at how sand mining impacted the women in Cambodia, India, Kenya, and Indonesia. From home to the streets, women are on the frontlines in the resistance against these powerful sand mining operations.
Here are the stories they uncovered…
Read other articles in the series :
Women against the grain – Beneath the Sands ERC
Women in Cambodia, India, Kenya and Indonesia share how they are on the frontlines in the resistance against powerful sand mining operations in their communities.
In a trade that is dominated and driven by men, women often bear the burden of the negative social and environmental impacts from sand mining activities across the world. This is evident in much of our reporting on the global industry. As is common with many environmental issues we face today, we feel that the disproportionate burden to women is a heavily underreported issue…
We can’t run away – Beneath the Sands ERC
The rise in sand demand endangers the lives of children, laborers, journalists and environmental defenders.
Greed over grains of sand has a fatal human cost: As cities rise and countries urbanize, sand-related murders and other associated crimes have taken a toll on poverty-stricken communities.
In parts of the globe, where sand is extracted, criminal gangs and sand mafias control the multi-billion dollar trade, spawning violence in land-rich, developing nations. On their trail are hundreds of people — miners, journalists and environmental defenders — reported to have been killed, imprisoned or threatened…
Reclamation: A flawed solution – Beneath the Sands ERC
A deep dive into the rationale behind some of Asia’s reclamation projects, the toll they take on our environment and communities, and the search for more sustainable alternatives.
Reclamation is seen as a solution for countries to deal with increasing land demands, by expanding their territory and rehabilitating previously uninhabitable lands or seas. Yet, the process guzzles an alarming amount of sand, causing massive environmental damage as well as a rise of transnational criminal syndicates trading in illegal sand..
Nowhere to fish, nowhere to farm – Beneath the Sands ERC
Across Asia and Africa, countries are dealing with massive sand mining that destroys fishing grounds, farmlands, and homes.
Beting Aceh, an island in Riau Province, Indonesia, has been Eryanto’s home for 40 years. The island is known for its white sandy beaches and clean ocean water; more than half its residents are fishers.
But the island has drastically changed over the past two years. The ocean water is getting murky, the beach is shrinking, and it has suffered from massive erosion, indicated by the uprooted trees strewn along the coast. Many villagers say the damage is linked to a sand mining operation happening between Beting Aceh and the neighboring Babi Island…
Global sand trade figures don’t add up – Beneath the Sands ERC
On March 17, more than 120 tons of sand packed into drums was loaded onto the Basle Express, a container freight ship more than three soccer fields long. The ship was docked in one of America’s major ports, Savannah, Georgia, in the Southeast region of the country.
The shipment itself was not remarkable — except for how it is emblematic of the international sand trade, highlighting the type of sand that attracts foreign buyers, the countries that are buying and those that are selling…
