A United Nations report of April 26 has called for urgent action to avert a “sand crisis,” including a ban on beach extraction as demand rockets to 50 billion tonnes a year, according to Reuters.
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report said sand is the most exploited natural resource in the world after water but its use is largely ungoverned, meaning that it is being consumed faster than it can be replaced by geological processes that take hundreds of thousands of years.
Global consumption for use in glass, concrete and construction materials has tripled over two decades to reach 50 billion tonnes a year, or about 17 kilogrammes per person each day. The report said that this is harming rivers and coastlines and even wiping out small islands.
“We now find ourselves in the position where the needs and expectations of our societies cannot be met without improved governance of sand resources,” Sheila Aggarwal-Khan, director of the Economy Division at UNEP said in the report’s foreword. “If we act now, it is still possible to avoid a sand crisis”, she said.
According to Reuters, UNEP’s Pascal Peduzzi who coordinated the report written by 22 authors said that some of the impacts of over-exploitation were already being felt. In the Mekong River – the longest in Southeast Asia – sand extraction was causing the delta to sink, leading to salinisation of previously fertile soil.
In a Sri Lankan river, sand removal had reversed the water flow, resulting in ocean water heading inland and bringing salt-water crocodiles with it, Mr Peduzzi told journalists, according to Reuters.
The report said that demand is now seen as shifting to Africa where villagers often remove sand from beaches to build expanding cities. In some cases, this can make coastlines more vulnerable to the impact of climate change, such as more powerful storms, the report said.
Among the UN report’s recommendations were a ban on beach extraction and the creation of an international standard for marine dredging that can harm ocean biodiversity.
It also called for lowering demand by reusing sand from recycled materials like concrete and mining tailings instead of using naturally occurring sand.
What is the situation with Guyana’s vast sand resources? Not much is known of this save for the regular notifications by the Environmental Protection Agency about the approvals of applications for sand mining. It is unclear whether the government and the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) have made decisions on conserving this vital resource and monitoring exportation to resource-hungry markets.
What is however clear is that the government has been advertising the sand/silica sector as ripe for investment and extraction is projected to increase sharply with the booming construction sector. As recently as February 23rd this year on the occasion of the country’s Republican anniversary, President Ali cited the riches of the sector.
Speaking under the rubric `Country positioning’, President Ali said “We, as a people, must understand what our country has to offer and where it will be positioned in the future”. He then reeled off a list of resources and said ”Our silica sand reserves are estimated at 1.5 billion tonnes, valued conservatively at G$37.5b”.
At the conclusion of the listing of the various resources, President Ali said: “These characteristics of our country position us to be among the best in food production, aquaculture, eco-tourism, environmental services, forestry mining, and energy among many others.
“The world has now started to realise this. It is our collective effort that will position us among the best globally in these and other sectors”.
Those remarks would appear to welcome significant investment in sand mining.
The government’s 2022 budget also advanced the prospects of the sand mining industry and cited the expected growth to meet construction industry needs. In his budget presentation, Minister with responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh said that in 2021 sand extraction was estimated to have grown by a whopping 132.8 percent ”partially supported by heavy emphasis of construction activity in the Government’s Public Sector Investment Programme (PSIP) as well as rapid expansion in private sector construction activity”.
He then went on to say that with the construction boom underway particularly in relation to housing and road projects, the development and expansion of the other mining and quarrying subsector was crucial.
He added that in 2021, there were five new permits granted for sand and loam that covered 525 acres. The acreage of the plots ranged from 25 to 283 acres and production was expected to “expand significantly in 2022 and beyond. Critically, 2022 will see attention focused on ensuring beneficial occupation of sand-bearing properties along the Soesdyke-Linden Highway”.
With oil driving a robust expansion of the economy, there must be a careful assessment of sand extraction particularly along the Soesdyke-Linden Highway. In 2020, Stabroek News had reported the longstanding concerns that sand mining along the highway over the years had contributed to large depressions forming along stretches of the road.
A GGMC 2010 Code of Practice for sand and loam mining set buffer zones for sensitive areas. For the Linden-Soesdyke Highway: A non-extractable, vegetated buffer zone, 100 meters wide … must be maintained along the side of the mine/pit parallel to the Linden-Soesdyke Highway and power lines.
A 10 metre wide vegetated buffer is also to be maintained along Smart Road and along the eastern boundaries facing Madewini Creek, Linden Highway. The level of compliance with this requirement is unclear.
There are also specific requirements for the stockpiling of topsoil and overburden for reclamation and revegetation.
There is also the prospect of the development of a local glass industry and other applications.
The UNEP report should serve as an inflection point for an examination here of the state of sand extraction and what steps are required to ensure this isn’t unrestrained and unsustainable.