Sand miner, Mumbai, India. Photo courtesy of: © Denis Delestrac
Excerpts;
At a time when the planet’s reserve of sand from its beaches is threatened by smuggling and illegal mining, environmentalists are asking India, as the present international custodian of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD), to take a lead in the control of sand mining.
Two environmentalists from the city, Assad Rahmani, Director, Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), and Sumaira Abdulali, Convenor, Awaaz Foundation, have written to Union Minister of Environment and Forest, Jayanthi Natarajan, on the degradation of coastal environment.
They have pointed out how the film, Sand Wars, in which Awaaz Foundation participated and was premiered in May 2013 in Paris, had a record viewership on the TV channel Arte, and precipitated possible policy change in the European Union…