WORKERS AT THE MINING SITE

Uncontrolled extraction comes at the expense of other economic sectors, local livelihoods and biodiversity. Direct safety risks for those working in the sector and living in the communities where this takes place include drowning (of workers removing sand from river beds), subsidence and landslides in extraction areas.

Local and indigenous peoples living in communities where sand extraction takes place are rarely heard in the mix of informal and formal governance, illegal and criminal activities; though when riverine or coastal societies are in crisis, they participate in sand extraction processes because it is their only possibility to make a living in the short run (Anongos etal., 2012; Awaaz Foundation, 2017).

https://d1pdf7a38rpjk8.cloudfront.net/fileadmin/user_upload/documents/Nyheder/2019/1_Sand_and_sustainability_UNEP_2019.pdf