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THE STAR Businessweek JULY 21, 2018

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Heathrow rejects claims it will struggle to fund £14bn runway Heathrow airport has hit back at accusations that it will struggle to fund its controversial new £14bn runway, after allegations that taxpayers will be called on to help pay for one of Britain’s biggest infrastructure projects in decades. Page 3

Flying high Agriculture, tourism, conservation and disaster recovery - drone technology is revolutionising many aspects of life in the Caribbean

They look like robotic toys but can save lives, protect ecosystems, boost crops and highlight the best of the Caribbean’s stunning beauty. Drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are rapidly growing in popularity and, as they take over the skies, users are finding they have a wide application in the region. By Catherine Morris, STAR Businessweek Correspondent Continued on page 4

Brussels warns Airbnb over consumer rights Brussels has warned Airbnb it has until the end of August to change its terms and conditions protecting users or face the possibility of legal action in the European Union Page 7

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Renewed Interest in Renewable Energy: The State of the Sector in 2018 By Ed Kennedy, STAR Businessweek Correspondent

The STAR Businessweek BY Christian Wayne – Editor at Large

A longtime reader of this newspaper and a respected peer of mine wrote to us a few issues ago to notify our editorial team that “we had no idea what we were talking about!” as it related to an article that appeared in the June 30th edition of The STAR Businessweek that focused on resilience-building measures farmers living in the Hurricane Alley can take to protect their livelihoods. Now, any person working in the media will know that Letters to the Editor that begin with “moron” or slightly less-colorful phrasing are hardly rare, but this one actually had some substance to it so I decided to engage. The reader’s contention with the article (which can be read at www.issuu.com/starbusinessweek) was not the author’s recommendations to farmers, per se, but whether Saint Lucia, in fact, even had any farmers who would need to safeguard crops in the first place. In other words, this reader, also a well-accomplished agriculturalist in his own right, was suggesting that the agriculture sector in Saint Lucia is so small it’s practically non-existent, and therefore an article prescribing protection measures for farmers is rendered totally moot. I was intrigued. What did our reader mean by “there are no farmers in Saint Lucia”? Surely, there must be some farmers, right? In the reader’s words: there’s a fallacy in this country that the agriculture industry is ticking along . . .“it’s not!” I pressed on: What do you mean? “What do I mean? There’s less than 3 companies on the island who are farming at any significant scale, and you’re talking to one of them now, so that leaves the number of real farmers at next to zero!” And herein lies the nuance of the sector: how many individuals are farming for subsistence purposes versus how many are farming as part of enterprise. This query is what seemed to be at the core of that reader’s argument. How is one to distinguish subsistence farmers from agro-businesses? Surely, most, if not all, subsistence farmers want to expand their operations to an enterprise-scale. If so, what hurdles are stopping their progression from subsistence to enterprise? Is it the lack of insurance facilities available to smallholders? Is it the lack of financing? Weak export regimes? A suppressed domestic market? All of the above? Or is it out-of-touch multilateral organisations who are, like our reader suggested, prescribing solutions to the wrong problems? What say you, dear reader? Let us know your thoughts by writing to starbusinessweek@stluciastar.com

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Renewable Energy and the Caribbean Islands are a match made in heaven!

y any measure, recent times have been high octane for the renewable energy sector. This is saying something, too, given it is always a fast-paced and politically charged business environment. Yet recent years have seen the industry stress tested in a new way, and this has been borne out in a variety of fields. Back in 2009 the failure of the Copenhagen Summit to get a global climate deal done was a low point; the September 2016 ratification of the subsequent Paris climate deal, a high point. Then the ‘Trump factor’ hit global politics, and saw new scepticism as the US withdrew from the Paris deal. Throughout these events, markets have rollercoastered, and innovators have emerged in the renewable energy sector, bringing new promise to the sector and optimism for its growth. But this industry also has a ticking clock unlike almost any other, one that has serious implications for the Caribbean. Reducing emissions is not optional, but essential. To do that, renewable energy needs to become a centrepiece of future energy policy. Real results and progress need to be made, and - put simply - the sector

needs be truly sustainable. So what is the state of the renewable energy sector in 2018? And is it set for more volatility in years ahead, or is it really different this time? Let’s look now.

Political resistance fading

For the Caribbean and the wider world, in 2018 it’s understood going green is essential. The turn to renewable energy, at heart, is like two wings of a bird: providing the promise to reduce carbon emissions and combat the causes of rising sea levels and other environmental threats, while also offering an avenue for truly innovative tech to be developed. Tech that, when integrated properly, can deliver greater power, efficiency, and affordability to market. Despite general agreement that climate change is occuring, there remain, even today, political parties and groups that dispute it’s caused by humans, and so dispute the need for action. At the very least, if the action comes in detriment to existing industry. There are, of course, some shades of grey here. Just as those who would seek to take no action on climate change

would enrage a conservationist, so, too, are there some activists who would make light of the impact that shutting down the fossil fuel industry overnight would have on jobs, and people’s very livelihood. This tension notwithstanding, within the political arena recent years have seen a strong and decisive shift. Though the Trump Administration ultimately withdrew the US from the Paris agreement in mid2017, the People’s Republic of China stayed in it. Alongside many US states, like California, having sought to circumvent Trump’s withdrawal and get a deal done at the state level, a telling moment came when Trump championed the cause of Pittsburgh coal miners as a reason to withdraw from the Paris agreement. The world’s biggest economy may have withdrawn at the federal level but the state level showed the seachange. The swift and widespread rebuke of Trump’s actions from Pennsylvania with numerous state leaders saying a withdrawal would not help but hurt local jobs - illustrated that the old argument ‘climate change action means a loss of jobs’ no longer cut the mustard as a broad cloak for inaction. Though this episode shows an old line of resistance fall on climate change inaction, there’s still a long road ahead. Ultimately, the next chapter of conservation and the shift towards more renewable energy will require a greater engagement by business and investors in the space.

Markets still searching

One of the challenges in the renewable energy sector right now is the absence of an iconic household name. When people think electric cars they think Tesla. When people think tech stocks they think the FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google). Many investors will agree that green energy is the way of the future - and could net some tidy profits too - but a business resonating enough now to have someone trade in a blue chip for a green stock is a tall hurdle. There is also the question of size. Green energy stocks are growing, but not yet at the scale of the giant energy companies. As a number of these existing giants seek to shift away from carbon emitting fuels to renewable sources in their own right, it may ultimately delay public conscious of the green sector too, as anyone waiting for a giant to emerge may miss out on the fact a giant has reformed. Cynics may ask why invest in a former fossil fuel company, but these firms have the size to deliver sweeping change. This is something newer start-ups and smaller competitors in this space may struggle to do. Continued on page 5

Heathrow expansion

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Heathrow rejects claims it will struggle to fund £14bn runway Critics say landing charges will rise and taxpayers will foot expansion bill By Gill Plimmer and Jonathan Ford in London, FT Correspondents

eathrow airport has hit back at accusations that it will struggle to fund its controversial new £14bn runway, after allegations that taxpayers will be called on to help pay for one of Britain’s biggest infrastructure projects in decades. Paul Deighton, Heathrow’s chairman, has written to the Civil Aviation Authority to “set the record straight” after noting “a continuing debate regarding the financials” of expansion. “We have an investment grade credit rating, and existing shareholders will invest equity to maintain this through the higher risk expansion period,” he said. “This is a very strong position from which to finance the expansion of Heathrow. There will be no cost to the taxpayer.” MPs voted for Heathrow’s latest expansion plan last month but there are concerns that it will require a significant rise in airline landing charges and that taxpayers will be forced to foot a large chunk of the bill. Heathrow is already £13.4bn in debt — not far shy of the £15bn value of its regulatory asset base, according to Heathrow Airport Holdings’ 2017 accounts. Equity stood at just £703m, while investors — which include sovereign wealth funds and the Spanish company Ferrovial — have been pulling out more in dividends than Heathrow has been earning. Last year they received a payout of £847m even though post-tax profits were just £516m. Under the plans approved by

Heathrow’s landing charge is already the highest in Europe © Charlie Bibby/FT

parliament last month, much of the £14bn price of the third runway would be financed with borrowed money. There are concerns that financing costs — which could run to £2bn-£3bn over the six-year construction period — might stretch the balance sheet to breaking point. These sums do not take into account the possibility of cost overruns and legal claims. Heathrow’s owners may also come under pressure to contribute more towards transport access to the expanded airport. Although Heathrow believes it should pay only £1bn for

the road and rail connections, Transport for London believes the cost will be nearer £10bn. Lord Deighton, commercial secretary to the Treasury from 2013 until he became executive chairman at Heathrow in 2015, urged the CAA to “deliver a stable regulatory framework that provides a fair rate of return to investors”. The CAA said: “We welcome Heathrow airport’s renewed commitments to work with stakeholders to deliver a third runway affordably.” The regulator said it expected the airport to keep charges “as close to current levels as possible”.

At £22 per passenger, Heathrow’s landing charge is already the highest in Europe. Willie Walsh, chief executive of IAG, owner of British Airways, Heathrow’s biggest airline, has said he believes it is “only a matter of time before we start hearing excuses for massive cost escalation”. Lord Deighton, who was responsible for the government’s national infrastructure plan in 2014, said that shareholders were “clear that Heathrow must remain affordable”.

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Flying high

complicated and more like science fiction but soon will be as normal as using a smartphone.”

Agriculture, tourism, conservation and disaster recovery - drone technology is revolutionising many aspects of life in the Caribbean

Continued from page 1

Drone operators can quickly and easily capture aerial images of a farmer’s land, showing which plants are damaged, which require immediate attention and which can be saved. This type of data can help farmers recoup their losses, plan for next year’s harvest and prepare documentation for insurance claims with accurate ‘before’ and ‘after’ imaging

Assisting agriculture

As the agriculture industry moves to harness more technology, drones have an important part to play in lowering costs and improving yields, particularly against a backdrop of rising production costs, intensifying natural disasters and increased competition. “Global agricultural has had to make some creative moves,” says Jovan Parusic, Business Development Manager at agricultural sensing and analysis platform Agremo which has assisted Caribbean farmers in using drones to analyze banana, mango, coffee and avocado plantations and enhance seasonal monitoring. “Based on our inputs, growers were able to optimize production, prepare logistics and manpower for harvest, detect different types of stresses and apply needed measures in time,” explains Parusic. “Besides having insights on a plant’s overall health and accurate number of plants, [farmers] have solid proof of how their fields are doing throughout the season.” Parusic believes the technology is on the rise in the region, boosted by younger farmers’ willingness to embrace innovation. “We at Agremo are very proud of the Caribbean agricultural community for their devotion to the cause, and willingness to think outside the box. I have to admit that [the Caribbean] has embraced the technology and its benefits much sooner than a majority of Western European countries. More growers, especially younger age growers, are willing to try and invest in new tech and see the benefits for themselves.” Drones are set to further transform the region’s agricultural industry in the longterm. Parusic says that UAVs, in combination with other sensors, can work in swarms to perform spraying, monitoring and harvesting. “This will lead to improved food production and ultimately saving our planet. It sounds

Disaster Recovery

Following last year’s back-to-back hurricanes, Irma and Maria, farmers in the storm-hit islands faced severe devastation, some losing 100 per cent of their crops. With their livelihood in ruins, immediate and accurate damage assessment was crucial to helping them rebuild. Drone operators can quickly and easily capture aerial images of a farmer’s land, showing which plants are damaged, which require immediate attention and which can be saved. This type of data can help farmers recoup their losses, plan for next year’s harvest and prepare documentation for insurance claims with accurate ‘before’ and ‘after’ imaging. Agremo helped farmers in Puerto Rico get back on track after the storms and Parusic says: “Professional damage assessment is one of the most important things to do after such an event. Drone imagery can act as evidence in insurance claims, especially if fields were monitored throughout the season and there are images of what they looked like before the damage occurred.” In the wake of a disaster, drone benefits go beyond agriculture. They can also be used for search and rescue missions in the immediate aftermath - finding survivors, helping rescuers avoid treacherous areas and giving instant updates on infrastructure conditions. Once the dust has settled, drones can help insurance companies settle claims as quickly as possible. Use of UAVs drastically reduces the amount of time and manpower spent on assessing damage, which speeds up the entire rebuilding process. Drones played a huge role after last year’s hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, helping restore cellular service in Puerto Rico, identifying flood flashpoints in Texas after Harvey and providing real time news coverage of Irma-affected areas.

Conservation innovation

Technology is changing the face of conservation, and drones are at the forefront of this movement as they give environmentalists unparalleled insight into wildlife and habitats. Using the drone’s bird’s eye view, scientists can now track and monitor rare species, survey ecosystems and assess environmental damage. In May, the Nature Conservancy in the Caribbean and the Carnegie Institution for Science teamed up with aerospace technology firm Planet to launch an exciting new initiative - creating the first ever high-resolution map of the entire Caribbean basin. Some of the field data for the project will be collected by drones and will help establish a comprehensive and highly accurate database of information on the region’s vulnerable coral reef ecosystem. The data will be shared with governments, conservation groups and other stakeholders so they can better protect and understand the region’s vulnerable marine ecosystems. Drones can protect the environment from natural hazards, but they are also a handy tool in cracking down on manmade threats. The Caribbean is a huge region and many countries just don’t have the resources to police all the territory within their borders. Deploying UAVs would help these states crack down on poachers and polluters, no matter how far from shore they are. In 2015 Jamaica, which loses around US$19m a year to illegal fishing, ran a successful antipoaching pilot project in which drones ran through a series of test flights and transmitted live video feed as they patrolled the skies.

Technology tourism

For the tech-minded tourist, selfies just

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don’t cut it anymore. The sweeping aerial photography provided by drones captures the many colours of the Caribbean like never before and tourists are increasingly bringing their UAVs on vacation so they can grab instagram-worthy shots. There’s also been high demand in recent years for drone photography that covers special events like weddings or conferences. Major hotels and resorts are also getting onboard with the trend, using UAV imagery for their promotional and marketing materials. Anyone involved in tourism marketing knows that visuals sell and the blues of the Caribbean waters are known to be particularly photogenic. Using drones not only produces high-quality video, it also cuts down on the manpower, time and risks to the environment involved in sending out photographers. Last year, Caribbean tourism took a hit following the 2017 devastating hurricane season. Many overseas visitors, unfamiliar with the region’s geography, assumed that the entire area was closed for business. Drones could have shown them otherwise. Having UAVs send images of pristine, untouched islands to the world may well have mitigated some of the reputational damage and lured tourists back to the area faster.

Concerns and challenges The Federal Aviation Administration predicts that between 2016 and 2021, the number of commercial drones will increase by around 58% and there could be as many as 6.12 million drones in the sky by 2021. As the market for drones gets bigger, the drones themselves will change, becoming smaller, less expensive and more agile. This opens up even more possibilities for their application. If the Caribbean is to fully embrace the technology, however, there must be more consistency in terms of national and regional regulation. So far, the islands have mostly been playing catch-up, introducing regulation in an ad hoc manner that has left drone enthusiasts confused.

In the wake of a disaster, drone benefits go beyond agriculture. They can also be used for search and rescue missions in the immediate aftermath - finding survivors, helping rescuers avoid treacherous areas and giving instant updates on infrastructure conditions

In Saint Lucia, drones are legal but there are a number of restrictions. They cannot be flown within 2.5 miles of an airport or heliport, they’re banned around busy roads and bridges and cannot fly over crowds, events, forests or prisons. They also cannot be more than 400ft above ground. These restrictions reflect the most common concerns surrounding drones: privacy and security. “Drones are an amazing tool but, just like any other vehicle, pretty dangerous if not used properly,” says Parusic. All technology comes with risks but these must be weighed against the far-reaching benefits of UAVs. They may have started out as highly specialised military technology but drones are now in the hands of hobbyists, travellers, farmers, and environmentalists, all of whom are using them to transform life in the Caribbean.

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Renewed Interest in Renewable Energy: The State of the Sector in 2018 Continued from page 2

Small tropical islands could become the world’s first 100% renewable nations

Locals taking action

With the politics of the green arena changing permanently, but the markets still seeking out a poster child of the new energy era, it’s business that serves as a focal point of new momentum in this space. As it stands, right here in Saint Lucia, recent events have shown rich promise. The beginning of LUCELEC’s 3MW solar farm in September 2017 saw steady and commendable progress, leading to the official launch of the farm’s operations on the Saint Lucian power grid in April of this year. 3 megawatts powered by 15 thousand solar panels is an inspiring feat in and of itself, but it

also represents a powerful proof of concept for our local energy industry. Sites like this are not going away. They prove to governments near and far the political football of climate change is going to run out of game clock. It also shows the global markets that the era where renewable energy was a nice ‘thought bubble’ but impractical has long since come to an end. For nations across the Caribbean, projects like these are also a path for future growth.

More energy, more industry

The Caribbean has the potential to be a renewable energy epicentre. The Turks and the Caicos Islands alone get over 350 days of

sunshine a year. While nations like Scotland, England, and Iceland may be embattled with comparatively little sunshine on a global scale, Caribbean nations have it in abundance. This goes beyond the production of energy alone, to other industries. The future of cars in the Caribbean shows how the region’s longstanding natural resources can be used in a new way as the shift to new energy use across a host of industries comes to the fore. Yes, globally there remains a balancing act to green energy adoption, and this applies locally too. But the more we see of projects like LUCELEC’s locally, the more it stands to benefit the renewable energy sector as a whole, in the Caribbean and beyond.

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Conservation

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Is the world running out of sand? The truth behind stolen beaches and dredged islands The insatiable demand of the global building boom has unleashed an illegal market in sand. Gangs are now stealing pristine beaches to order and paradise islands are being dredged and sold to the construction industry By Neil Tweedi, The Guardian International

aradise is a beach, we are told. Pristine white or coral pink. We leaf through brochures in search of perfect sand. There is a Paradise Beach on Barbados, and in Croatia, and Thailand, and South Africa, too. In every tourist-hungry part of the globe, in fact. The naturalist Desmond Morris believes that, as descendants of water-loving apes, we are hard-wired to seek out these places, lulled by the rhythmic advance and retreat of the ocean as we soak up the sun, sand grains trickling through our workless fingers. And so much to go around. Man has always used sand as an analogy for the infinite, a limitless resource, ordinary and yet magical, incapable of exhaustion. When astronomers seek to impress upon us the size of the universe, they speak of stars being more numerous than grains of sand. There are quite a few grains, as it happens – 7.5 x 10 to the 18th power, according to researchers at the University of Hawaii. That’s 7 quintillion, 500 quadrillion – give or take the odd trillion. Yet sand in the right places is anything but

infinite. Our insatiable appetite for new buildings, roads, coastal defences, glass, fracking, even electronics, threatens the places we are designed by evolution to love most. The world consumes between 30 and 40bn tonnes of building aggregate a year, and half of this is sand. Enough material to build a wall 27m high and 27m wide around the equator. Sand is second only to water as a natural material extracted by humans, and our society is built on it, quite literally. Global production has risen by a quarter in just five years, fuelled by the insatiable demands of China and India for housing and infrastructure. Of the 15 to 20bn tonnes used annually, about half goes into concrete. Our need for concrete is such that we make almost 2 cubic metres worth each year for every man, woman and child on the planet. But what of those oceans of sand stretching from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf – the Sahara and the Arabian Desert? The wrong kind of sand, unfortunately. Wind action in deserts results in rounded grains that are too smooth and too small to bind well in concrete.

Going with the grain: paradise islands are being dredged and sold to the construction industry.

Builders like angular sand of the kind found on riverbeds. Sand, sand everywhere, nor any grain to use, to paraphrase Coleridge. A textbook example is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world’s tallest skyscraper. Despite being surrounded by sand, it was constructed with concrete incorporating the “right kind of sand” from Australia. Riverbed sand is prized, being of the correct gritty texture and purity, washed clean by running fresh water. Marine sand from the seabed is also used in increasing quantities, but it must be cleansed of salt to avoid metal corrosion in buildings. It all comes at a cost. China leads the charge in today’s sandfuelled construction boom, consuming half the world’s supply of concrete. Between 2011 and 2014 it used more concrete than the United States did in the entire 20th century. Aggregate is the main ingredient for roads, and China laid down 146,000km of new highway in a single year. By 2050, twothirds of humanity will live in urban areas, a product of migration and population growth. The population of India, second only to China in its hunger for concrete, is expected to grow from 1.32bn to 1.7bn by the middle of the century. Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, is one of the world’s top 10 megacities, with a population of 22m. China and India rely largely on national supplies of sand – to minimise transport costs – but as the skyscrapers rise in Shanghai and Mumbai, so does the price of this once-humble ingredient. China’s hunger for sand is insatiable, its biggest dredging site at Lake Poyang produces 989,000 tonnes per day. International trade in sand is rising as local supply outstrips demand. The destruction of habitats vital to fish, crocodiles, turtles and other forms of riverine and marine life accompanies the destruction of sand barriers and coral reefs protecting coastal communities, as in Sri Lanka. Sand extraction lowers the water table and pollutes drinking water, as in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam,

while stagnant pools created by extraction on land foster malaria. No one knows how much damage is being done to the environment because sand extraction is a largely hidden threat, underresearched and often happening in isolated places. “We are addicted to sand but don’t know it because we don’t buy it as individuals,” says Aurora Torres, a Spanish ecologist who is studying the effects of global sand extraction at Germany’s Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research. “Extraction has grown strongly over the past four decades and has accelerated since 2000. Urban development is putting more and more strain on limited accessible deposits, causing conflict around the world. Sand dredging degrades corals, seaweeds and seagrass meadows and is a driver of biodiversity loss, threatening species already on the verge of extinction. Our consumption of sand is outstripping our understanding of its environmental and social effects.” Sand accounted for 85% of the total weight of mined material in 2014, yet it is replenished by rock erosion only over thousands of years. Booming demand means scarcity; scarcity means money and money means criminality. Globally, sand extraction is estimated to be worth £50bn per year, a cubic metre of sand selling for as much as £62 in areas of high demand and scarce supply. This makes it vulnerable to illegal exploitation, particularly in the developing world. Why buy expensive sand, sourced from licensed mines, when you can anchor your dredger in some remote estuary, blast the sand out of the riverbed with a water jet and suck it up? Or steal a beach? Or dismantle an entire island? Or whole groups of islands? This is what the “sand mafias” do. Criminal enterprises, their illegal mining operations in Asia, Africa and elsewhere, are protected by officials and police paid to look the other way – and powerful customers in the construction industry who prefer not to ask too Continued on page 8

sharing economy

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Brussels warns Airbnb over consumer rights European Commission says platform needs to be more transparent about its fees By Mehreen Khan in Brussels, FT Correspondent

There are over 4 million Airbnb listings worldwide and on any given night there are nearly 2 million people staying in an Airbnb rental across the world. But Brussels says the US$ 32billion company needs to get more consumer-friendly with pricing transparency

russels has warned Airbnb it has until the end of August to change its terms and conditions protecting users or face the possibility of legal action in the European Union. The European Commission on Monday said the accommodation platform needed to align itself with EU consumer rights laws by making sure prices shown on the platform are inclusive of all fees, and should boost the powers consumers have to sue hosts who fall foul of the rules. “Consumers must easily understand

what for and how much they are expected to pay for the services and have fair rules — for example on cancellation of the accommodation by the owner”, said Vera Jourova, EU commissioner for justice and consumers. Airbnb has until the end of August to propose solutions to the commission’s complaints. Should it fail to do so, consumer protection authorities in the EU’s 28 member states will be able to launch legal action against the “sharing economy” platform under its national laws. In a statement, Airbnb said: “We take this issue seriously and are committed to being as transparent as possible for our

“Consumers must easily understand what for and how much they are expected to pay for the services and have fair rules — for example on cancellation of the accommodation by the owner”, said Vera Jourova, EU commissioner for justice and consumers

community”. “Guests are made aware of all fees, including service charges and taxes, before confirming their decision to book a listing, and we will work together with the authorities to clarify the points raised.” The commission also wants Airbnb to change its terms and conditions so the company does not “mislead” consumers by going to court in a different member state to the one in which they reside. EU authorities also want to prevent Airbnb unilaterally changing a customer’s terms and conditions without due warning or suspend contracts without proper explanation.

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Continued from page 6

many questions. From Jamaica to Morocco to India and Indonesia, sand mafias ruin habitats, remove whole beaches by truck in a single night and pollute farmlands and fishing grounds. Those who get in their way – environmentalists, journalists or honest policemen – face intimidation, injury and even death. “It’s very attractive for these sand mafias,” says Torres, who is one of the few academics studying this Cinderella issue – overshadowed as it is by climate change, plastic pollution and other environmental threats. “Sand has become very profitable in a short time, which makes for a healthy black market.” Reporting on this illegal trade can get you killed in India. In March this year, Sandeep Sharma, a reporter with a local television station, was mown down by a sand truck after filming a police officer accepting a bribe in return for turning a blind eye to sand mining in a crocodile sanctuary. Last month, a special branch constable in Tamil Nadu also paid with his life for gathering intelligence at an illegal mining site. Mumbai environmentalist Sumaira Abdulali is India’s foremost campaigner against illegal sand mining, a distinction that led to an attempt on her life in 2010. “The problem extends even to tourist beaches in Goa, Kerala and elsewhere,” she says. “Most people are afraid to complain – even government officials and police officers are afraid to approach illegal sites. Murders, threats and acts of intimidation between them probably number in the hundreds.” In southeast Asia, sand is a crucial ingredient in geopolitics. China’s imperial ambitions in the South China Sea are being furthered by the construction with sand of artificial islands hosting military bases intended to reinforce its claims in the region. This novel form of territorial expansion is also being pursued by rich but tiny Singapore, resulting in conflict with its bigger neighbours. The population of the city state has more than trebled to 6m since independence from Britain in 1963, resulting in a literal land grab. The world’s biggest importer of sand, Singapore has contrived a 20% increase in its land area using sand sourced from Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia and Thailand, much of it illegally. In 2008, it claimed to have imported only 3m tonnes of sand from Malaysia, but the real figure, according to the Malaysian government, was 133m tonnes, almost all of it smuggled, allegedly. As Singapore grows, so its vast neighbour Indonesia shrinks. Illegal sand extraction

Conservation

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threatens the very existence of some 80 small low-lying Indonesian islands bordering Singapore, playing havoc with marine ecology. Given the vast forces at work, the incomes and even lives of small farmers and fishermen in sand-rich areas are considered expendable. Bhaskar Rao Patil has never known wealth but the waters he fishes once provided enough to meet the modest needs of his family. Now they are barren, ruined by sand dredging. Patil lives in Bankot, a small coastal fishing town some 200km south of Mumbai. Across the estuary of the Savitri River, his nemesis is hard at work: a sand dredger, sucking up the bed of the river before depositing its “catch” in barges which then discharge their cargo into dumper trucks destined for Mumbai. Sought-after fish caught at the rate of 50 an hour in good times now number just five a day. A fishing boat of the kind he uses once supported five families; now it is two. “The only time we think about sand is on a beach holiday, but our lives are built on it,” says London-based Indian researcher Kiran Pereira, who has interviewed many people affected by rapacious sand mafias. Their accounts are published on her website, sandstories.org. “In some cases, people initially welcome sand mining because it creates jobs,” she says. “But once they see the effects it is too late to change.” The fishermen of western India must collude in the destruction of their fast-disappearing world. Around Mumbai, some 80,000 of them have changed their catch from fish to sand, so spoiled are their fishing grounds and so high is the demand for this basic material. Sand extraction is a developed world problem, too. In the US, sand mining for fracking has despoiled areas of Wisconsin, provoking protests from local people. And in the UK, Friends of the Earth has been fighting a long battle to curb sand dredging on Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland, one of Europe’s most important wetlands. Some 1.7m tonnes of sand are sucked up each year by dredging companies, despite the lake, the largest in the British Isles, being a protected area under domestic and European law. Friends of the Earth claim the local bird population has declined by more than 75% in the past 30 years, and fish habitats have been harmed by worsening water quality. “Despite rich layers of protection, the government has for decades turned a blind eye to the scouring of the bed of our biggest nature reserve,” says James Orr, director of Friends of the Earth in Northern Ireland. “It is a Klondyke on Lough Neagh.” The demands of the construction industry

Sand accounted for 85% of the total weight of mined material in 2014, yet it is replenished by rock erosion only over thousands of years. Booming demand means scarcity; scarcity means money and money means criminality are not the only problem, however. Around the world, the natural coastline is threatened by other forms of human interference. “Most natural sand beaches are disappearing, partly due to rising sea levels and increased storm action, but also to massive erosion caused by development of the shore,” says Andrew Cooper, professor of coastal studies at the University of Ulster and co-author of The Last Beach. The building of sea defences and so-called “beach nourishment” (dumping fresh sand on tourist beaches to combat erosion) store up trouble for the future, he says, disrupting the natural movement of waves and sand along the shore. “Beach nourishment is not a panacea for coastal erosion,” says Cooper. “It is, like a seawall, a means of holding a naturally mobile coast in place. And, like a seawall, it requires ongoing maintenance. Beach nourishment causes damage in the source area, killing all that goes into the dredger, before smothering and killing most things on the beach where it is placed. The beach it creates may serve as a recreational platform, but many studies have shown that nourished beaches are very poor substitutes for the natural ecosystems they replace.” Yet the British love affair with the seaside, sustained by memories of idyllic bucketand-spade holidays in youth, encourages this unnatural practice. In 2006, Lyme Regis turned to France for sand to replace that washed away by the constant motion of the English Channel, the Dorsetshire resort’s burghers justifying the expense by claiming that Gallic sand grains were less easily washed away than Anglo-Saxon ones. More sand (English this time) was needed in Dorsetshire to rebuild beaches washed away by the vicious storms of January 2014. Bournemouth, meanwhile, has

opted for cosmetic surgery to maintain its appeal, spending £3.6m to dump 320,000 cubic metres of supposedly “perfect” sand, sourced locally, on to its denuded beaches. Of course, you can always steal sand to nourish your beach, rather than buy it. In 2008, at Coral Spring on the north coast of Jamaica, 500 truck-loads of pristine sand was spirited away in a single night, never to be seen again. And when sand was required last year for a new resort in the Canary Islands it was imported (illegally, say environmentalists) from Western Sahara, the former Spanish colony now occupied by Morocco. Sand looted from beaches and riverbeds in the disputed territory is shipped north to Morocco for construction and to nourish the kingdom’s tourist beaches. “Beach nourishment is like a sticking plaster,” says Cooper. “It does not remove the underlying reasons for erosion. Worse, it provides a false sense of security. In future, as sea levels rise, it will demand bigger and bigger volumes of sand to be effective.” If the natural coastline, with its inconvenient shingle, its messy flotsam and jetsam, its sheer reality, does not suit, one can always visit a popup beach. These ersatz paradises spring up each year in major cities, created with sand imported by lorry. In London, a fiver will buy you access to “Fulham Beach” this summer, and “Hampstead Beach” is free. Brent Cross shopping centre may not be a contender for Condé Nast Traveller’s top 10 beach settings, but you can sun yourself there on imported sand until September. Landlocked Birmingham, meanwhile, boasts access to several urban and pop-up beaches, including the “Costa del Solihull”. Our demand for sand appears ever more insatiable. Can rampant sand extraction be curbed? A win-win solution is the use of waste plastic in making concrete. Research suggests small particles of plastic waste – “plastic sand” – can replace 10% of the natural sand in concrete, saving at least 800m tonnes per year. Another solution is more intelligent design: concrete structures are often over-engineered, incorporating beams that are thicker than necessary. A team at Cambridge University is using computer modelling to size concrete more efficiently and cut waste. Aurora Torres warns that such measures will not eliminate the continuing need for sand mining on a vast scale and that stricter monitoring and enforcement in the developing world are required. “This is a hidden ecological disaster in the making,” she says. “We will be hearing a lot more about sand in the coming years.”

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