It is no longer a cliché to say that the sands are shifting. They really are — by the lorryload. According to a UN report published last week, sand is being mined, dredged and even stolen to satisfy the global appetite for infrastructure. Strikingly, sand comes second only to water in terms of the volume of natural resources that are extracted and traded globally.
While it is being poured into much-needed urban development, particularly in China and India, sand is not a limitless gift of nature. The world has a “sand budget” and we are spending it faster than it can be replenished.
The environmental consequences are becoming plainer by the day. The plunder of lakes, rivers and coastal areas reduces biodiversity, destroys fishing communities, causes pollution, lowers the water table and, by ferrying away natural deposits, increases flood risk. It can also threaten tourism in countries like Morocco: with illegal coastal extraction providing half of the country’s annual sand needs (10m cubic metres), beaches are in danger of being stripped back to rock.