- As the country’s construction industry continues to boom the demand for sand soars to record levels.
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Illegal sand harvesting has led to the destruction of vegetation, reduced fertile land and farm productivity, and exposes communities to food insecurity.
Image: FILE
The UN Environment Programme estimates more than 50 billion tonnes of sand and gravel are mined yearly to meet soaring demand from construction and land reclamation.
This makes it the largest extractive industry on the planet.
Sand is a major driver of the world’s economies but unsustainable mining also poses a risk to rivers, people, economies and nature.
In Africa, and Kenya in particular, sand harvesting poses a great threat to agricultural land if not addressed urgently.
Every day dozens of trucks roar into construction sites delivering sand and gravel, leaving acres of destroyed farmland in their wake.
As the country’s construction industry continues to boom the demand for sand soars to record levels.
This continues to put pressure on agricultural land and other sources of sand nationwide, prompting sand harvesters to invade farms for the rare commodity.
Over the years Kenyans have engaged on uncontrolled sand mining in riverbeds at a rate that outpaces natural replenishment and have depleted sand deposits in the rivers of counties surrounding the capital, Nairobi.
The scarcity has left sand miners with no option but to dredge for sand on farmland, an illegal business that has fuelled the construction industry but threatens the livelihoods of thousands of small-scale farmers whose land it destroys.
Illegal sand harvesting has led to the destruction of vegetation, reduced fertile land and farm productivity, and exposes communities to food insecurity.
Actually, out of a five-acre farm, only an acre is under production. The rest has been turned to pits and trenches and cannot be put to agricultural use.
As demand for sand continues to soar, the communities fear the extraction of sand on their farms is not about to end soon, despite the enactment of the Sand Harvesting Act in 2014, which sought to regulate the harvesting of sand.
The National Environment Management Authority legislation on sand mining at the national and county levels needs to be implemented to regulate the industry.
The law restricts sand mining to between 6am and 6pm, but illegal miners avoid arrest by harvesting at night. The Act states: "On-farm sand harvesting shall only be undertaken by open-cast harvesting method and no underground tunnelling or extraction of sand shall be undertaken."
While most local farmers say sand extraction harms their livelihoods, landowner Kevin Mboya is making money from it.
Sand mining is already putting unprecedented pressure on rivers, floodplains and other water bodies and demand is only set to grow as development continues
The other impacts are hard to directly link to sand mining since rivers are affected by so many different factors, including dams. But it is clear that by extracting too much sediment out of the world’s rivers, unsustainable sand mining will contribute to bank erosion and shrinkage.
This will lead to the loss of agriculture land, houses and infrastructure, including roads, dykes and bridges.
The problem is that the benefits of natural sediment flow in rivers are usually ‘hidden’ from decisionmakers. Coupled with poor governance and a lack of enforcement of regulations in many countries, this blinkered approach to the impacts of sand mining leaves many rivers at the mercy of sand miners.
The UN estimates that many miners are operating illegally in more than 70 countries according to widespread reports in local media, extracting dwindling supplies of river and coastal sand, often with the support of complicit governments.
Unsurprisingly, violence follows in their wake as well as damage to rivers and ecosystems. We can borrow a leaf from Europe where research has shown that developed economies continue to prosper without resorting to river sand. Its supplies now come from crushed quarry rocks, recycled concrete and marine sand.
The demand for sand is increasing and preventing likely damage to rivers will require the construction industry to be weaned off river-sourced sand and gravel, either through the substitution of materials or alterations to building designs and methods so that extraction is reduced to levels that are proven to be sustainable.
This type of societal shift is similar to that required to address climate change, and will necessitate changes in the way that sand and rivers are perceived, and cities are designed and constructed.
There's need to conduct research into economic incentives or certification schemes that could drive a reduction in the extraction of sand from rivers.
Research, including short-term ‘rapid’ assessments and longer-term investigations, will help also us to understand how rivers and ecosystems respond to change.
Secretary, National Environmental Complaints Committee