Sand Mining Will Continue to Relocate Families in Sierra Leone
For people desperate to earn a living, this all translates into break-neck, environmentally disastrous, 24-hour, seven-days-a-week operations to carry hundreds of tonnes of sand from the beaches and sell it to builders as construction material. Not much is being done to stop what is almost a military operation…
Jobless Youths Revert to Beach Sand Mining, John Obey Beach, Sierra Leone
There´s a construction boom in Sierra Leone. For people desperate to earn a living, this all translates into break-neck, environmentally disastrous, 24-hour, seven-days-a-week operations to carry hundreds of tonnes of sand from the beaches and sell it to builders as construction material.
How illegal sand mining in Sierra Leone is destroying the local beaches
It all started after the civil war in our country when most of the houses were burned, leaving people homeless. When people were finally ready to rebuild their homes, contracts were given to Chinese and Senegalese construction companies which led to a huge demand for sand. Now, sand mines have become a place where otherwise unemployed young people can find work…
Sand-Mining Threatens Homes And Livelihoods In Sierra Leone
Round-the-clock sand-mining on beaches within a few kilometres of Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown is having a devastating effect on the coastline, destroying property, and damaging the area’s hopes of a tourism revival.
In pictures: Sand mining in Sierra Leone
Once synonymous with a brutal civil war, Sierra Leone was forecast to be one of the world’s fastest growing countries in 2012. On the back of the rapid economic growth, a construction boom, with new roads and buildings springing up in and around the major towns… But the construction brings with it increasing demand for sand, coming from the country’s beautiful beaches…
Destroying Paradise To Make Concrete Blocks: Sand Mining In Sierra Leone
A new threat has emerged that risks destroying Sierra Leone’s eco-tourism untapped opportunities for sustainable development: Sand Mining. The free-sand-for-all bonanza just exploded. Without permits, hundreds of trucks attack the beaches on a daily basis, hiring local boys as daily laborers to destroy their own communities…
Looting of the sea: the great sand theft – ABC
It is the most demanded raw material after water. It is used to make concrete, chips, detergents, paints… and even artificial islands. The big cities are hungry for sand and to satisfy it, the world’s beaches are being plundered….
Liberia: residents decry illicit sand mining in Schiefflin township
Residents are pleading with the government to come to their aid as illegal miners continue to mine sand and causing grave environmental hazard to the community. They say that there is continuous 24-hour, 7-day beach mining taking place.
China’s search for sand is destroying Mozambique’s pristine beaches
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.