Looting of the sea: the great sand theft – ABC

Sand mining, Mizoram, India (by Karen Conniff CC BY-NC 2.0 courtesy of Water Alternatives Photos via Flickr).

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….

West Papua, Indonesia from the Air – Planet Labs PBC

West Papua, Indonesia from the air: Mangrove forests are a natural fortification against storm surges (© Planet Labs PBC, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via Medium).

If every image tells a story, high resolution satellite imagery of the earth is the ultimate treasure trove where natural processes is the artist creating works of transcendent beauty that are at once abstract and realistic.