Along the way, environmental groups say, the industry has ruined river shrimp and crab stocks, harmed local ecosystems, and caused protective sand banks to shift and collapse. The material is still used in domestic construction, but more often it had been going to the highest foreign bidders - typically for cement production or land reclamation. With its shorelines, interior rivers, and estuaries increasingly ravaged by the industry, Cambodia banned sand exports once and for all in July. That assertion would resonate among the activists in Cambodia, which despite its modest size had recently become one of the world’s top 10 sand exporters, with much of its product going to land-expansion projects in Singapore, the world’s largest importer.
“A lack of proper scientific methodology for river sand mining has led to indiscriminate sand mining, while weak governance and corruption have led to widespread illegal mining,” the U.N. Increasingly, however, sand extraction has moved underwater to bays and riverbeds, where the impacts of dredging and piping - which can range from habitat destruction for key aquatic species, to compromised storm protection systems, failing shoreline infrastructure, and other issues - remain poorly regulated.
Open-pit mining operations leave open wounds on the landscape, easily seen via satellite images, leading to soil erosion and other problems. Lesser amounts go to making glass or other industrial uses. Some 44 billion tons are extracted from quarries, scraped from river and sea beds, or sucked up with massive pumps, after which the material is used to make concrete to help build burgeoning cities, or to advance usable acreage into the sea. Pound for pound, sand and gravel are the most extracted materials on the planet - comprising as much as 85 percent of all mined material in any given year, according to a 2014 report by the United Nations Environment Program. The pair have not yet been tried, but they face up to three years in prison if ultimately convicted, and their plight - which family, friends, and fellow activists are working to remedy - underscores a blunt reality in Cambodia, and the world over: Sand is serious business.
The environmental activists were charged with invasion of privacy and incitement to commit a crime after they were apprehended last month taking photos and filming barges delivering, their colleagues say, piles of sand - as large as whale carcasses - to an international trawler.
0 kommentar(er)
