‘Houses On The River Will Fall’: Cambodia’s Sand Mining Threatens Vital Mekong
Cambodia is experiencing a building boom that is transforming its capital, Phnom Penh. Sitting at the confluence of the Mekong and the Tonle Sap rivers, the city’s low-slung French colonial architecture is being replaced with high-rise apartment buildings, malls and luxury car dealerships. Sand from the Mekong’s sediment is key to that construction growth.
As Myanmar farmers lose their land, sand mining for Singapore is blamed
Both the Myanmar government and the company whose ships do the dredging in Chaungzon, deny the dredging is causing exacerbated erosion, as local farmers and politicians worry.
Environmental damage to coral reefs in South China Sea
New research reveals the unseen environmental damage being done to coral reefs in the hotly contested South China Sea, as China and other nations jostle for control of the disputed sea lanes.
Bainbridge asks state agencies to follow up on permit for sand mining on Triangle Property
As many as five sand mines operated along the shoreline of the Monterey bay, CA, throughout the last century, scraping sand directly off of the beach. CEMEX extracted about 200,000 yds3 of sand from this back beach pond every year. Captions and Photograph courtesy of: © Gary Griggs Excerpts; Neighbors to the mining site known […]
Sand dunes can ‘communicate’ with each other
Even though they are inanimate objects, sand dunes can ‘communicate’ with each other. A team from the University of Cambridge has found that as they move, sand dunes interact with and repel their downstream neighbors.
World Consumes 100 Billion Tons of Materials Every Year, Report Finds
The amount of material consumed by humanity has passed 100 billion tons every year, a report has revealed, but the proportion being recycled is falling.
Rule change may threaten coastal areas
The U.S. Department of Interior Secretary’s reversal of a rule that limited where sand within federally restricted coastal zones may be placed is a change that environmentalists say is a step backward in protecting sensitive coastal resources.
Asia’s hunger for sand is harmful to farming and the environment
Singapore’s added construction plan (in brown), 01-2020. Photograph: © SAF — Coastal Care Singapore’s expansion has been a colossal undertaking. It is not merely a matter of coastal reclamation: Singapore is growing vertically as well as horizontally. This means that the nation’s market needs fine river sand—used for beaches and concrete—as well as coarse sea […]
Unsustainable sand mining is threatening lives along the Mekong River in Cambodia
Sand river mining in the Puna Tsang Chu, Punakha, Bhutan, January 2020. Photograph:Photograph: © SAF — Coastal Care. As of 2011-2012, when investigative filmmaker Denis Delestrac and team, were first collecting and unveiling sand mining datas and information from the professionals involved, they found and reported that “the Sand business was estimated to be a […]