Excerpt:
“Sand offers perhaps one of the most paradigmatic manifestations of the Anthropocene reality.”
Sand is climbing the global agenda, including through a surge in academic publications, an uptake in media coverage, and a series of high-level calls to action. Yet, on the ocean sustainability front, it remains a blind spot. Neither sand nor dredging is mentioned once in the texts of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, or in the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy’s guidance…a step-change in how ocean sand is understood and governed around the world (is required), including: (1) building a holistic and systemic understanding of ocean sand; (2) developing and ensuring broad utilization of ocean sand monitoring tools; (3) embracing transdisciplinary research to inform policy and practice; and (4) fostering binding and voluntary governance mechanisms for ocean sand extraction and displacement.
