Indonesia’s risky gamble with sea sand exports

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Indonesia’s risky gamble with sea sand exports

Unregulated sand dredging in the early 2000s pushed Nipah to the brink of submersion, eroding its shores and threatening its existence. This small Indonesian island near Singapore, measuring just 0.62 hectares at high tide and 60 hectares at low, was among several in the Riau Archipelago threatened by relentless sand extraction. Driven by demand for land reclamation and construction projects, the dredging devastated fragile ecosystems and jeopar…