Sand theft or unauthorised or illegal

sand mining Sand mining is the extraction of sand, mainly through an open pit (or sand pit) but sometimes mined from beaches and inland dunes or dredged from ocean and river beds. Sand is often used in manufacturing, for example as an abrasive or in conc ...

leads to a widely unknown global example of

natural Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

and non-renewable

resource depletion Resource depletion is the consumption of a resource faster than it can be replenished. Natural resources are commonly divided between renewable resources and non-renewable resources (see also mineral resource classification). Use of either ...

problem comparable in extent to global

water scarcity Water scarcity (closely related to water stress or water crisis) is the lack of fresh water resources to meet the standard water demand. There are two types of water scarcity: physical or economic water scarcity. Physical water scarcity is whe ...

. Beach theft is illegal removal of large quantities of

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class o ...

from a

beach A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc sh ...

leading to full or partial disappearance of the beach. In India illegal sand mining is the country's largest organized criminal activity.

Sand and beach theft by country

Sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class o ...

theft is a worldwide phenomenon. Beach theft, the large-scale removal of sand to the point that entire stretches of a beach disappear, is considerably less common. Two instances of beach thefts have been widely reported in the media: one in

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

in 2007 and another in

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

in 2008. The beach that was stolen in Hungary was an artificially created one on the banks of a river. The other one is a genuine example of a beach theft.

China

Too much sand was taken from the Yangtze River to help build Shanghai in the 1980s and 1990s, prompting the Chinese government to ban sand mining there in 2000. However, smugglers continue to take sand. They evaded capture by hacking and cloning the automatic tracking systems of other ships, leading to multiple collisions.

Greece

The pink sands of Elafonisi, created by tidal and wave-induced deposits of pigmented microorganisms living in a symbiotic relationship with native seaweed, were a frequent subject of souvenir-taking by tourists until the Greek government declared the area a nature reserve and prohibited the sands' removal; even today, color saturation levels remain at only around 10% of those in the early twentieth century.

Hungary

An incident of beach theft occurred in

in 2007. In this case, multiple tonnes of sand were stolen by thieves from an artificial beach created by a resort in

Mindszent Mindszent is a town in Csongrád county, in the Southern Great Plain region of southern Hungary. Geography It covers an area of and has a population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city ...

alongside the banks of the

Tisza The Tisza, Tysa or Tisa, is one of the major rivers of Central and Eastern Europe. Once, it was called "the most Hungarian river" because it flowed entirely within the Kingdom of Hungary. Today, it crosses several national borders. The Tisza be ...

river. Approximately 6,000 cubic meters of sand were shipped in and lounge chairs, playground rides, and beach huts were added. Owing to the harsh Hungarian winters, the owners of the resort covered the rides with tarpaulin and closed the resort for the season in September 2007. When one of the owners drove by, they noticed that the beach was gone.

India

Sand thieves are referred to in India as the "sand mafia". They have been alleged to have murdered hundreds of people, including journalists, environmental activists, police officers, government officials, and others. In South India, the problem appears so pronounced that a particular

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

term – ''manarkollai'' – has been coined.

Jamaica

Sand is used in unregulated home-building across the island. Involvement by hotels was suspected in a July 2008 heist, where 500 truckloads of sand were stolen from a 400-metre stretch of beach at Coral Springs in the northern parish of Trelawny. The beach was to be part of a resort complex, but development halted after the theft. Sand was reported to have turned up on other beaches, but no charges were ever made.

Mexico

A Mexican environmental activist was murdered when he tried to stop sand mining in his village.

Singapore

Singapore is the world's largest importer of sand, using it for land reclamation that has increased the country's size by 20% since independence. Much of the imported sand has reportedly been mined illegally in Malaysia, Indonesia and Cambodia.

South Africa

A murder in South Africa was associated with rival gangs of sand miners fighting over sand.

Effects

Although sand theft does not seem to be a serious problem at first, it is nonetheless a serious problem as the removal of sand facilitates soil salinisation. For example, in Cape Verde, the theft of sand has caused the soil to salinify to such a degree, that a large number of orchards were permanently destroyed in the process. Taking sand from river systems and then transporting it can use a great deal of energy. It may also lead to ecological devastation, as it may involve completely dredging the river and its contents. If a river is depleted of

sediment Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sa ...

, it may end up flowing much faster, with serious downstream effects, including greater flooding.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sand theft Theft Beaches Illegal mining

Theft Theft is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal shorthand term for som ...