It might seem absurd to say, when here it appears to stretch in every direction as far as the eye can see, but the world is fast running out of sand. The ubiquity of undulating desert dunes and sandy beaches here in the Gulf means it rarely registers on most people’s radar as being a limited resource. And because there is a tendency for environmentalists to focus on the exploitation of natural resources and climate change leading to desertification, both in the region and beyond, a global sand crisis rarely gets the attention it deserves. Yet consumer demands are leading to a critical shortage. Sand is the single most extracted material on earth and the second most consumed after water. It is used for everything from construction to electronics and even cosmetics. And our reliance on sand - a cheap and seemingly omnipresent substance - has led global demand to triple in the past 20 years to about 50 billion tonnes a year, the equivalent of 18kg of sand per person per day. Worse, according to a <a href="https://www.thenational.ae/uae/environment/global-sand-demand-unprecedented-extraction-rates-could-lead-to-shortage-1.867437">recent report</a> by the United Nations' environment programme, over-extraction from rivers, beaches and lakes is changing ecosystems and leading to pollution, flooding and drought. This colossal depletion now poses “one of the major sustainability challenges of the 21st century”, according to the report. Unscrupulous sand-smugglers are taking advantage of patchy regulations worldwide to perform illegal and unsustainable extractions, threatening marine ecosystems and biodiversity. In India, “sand mafias” are even running illegal extracting operations worth more than $2 billion, which have completely depleted some coastal beaches in Tamil Nadu. But even legal extraction can be flawed as regulations differ from country to country, making it harder to create a set of internationally recognised rules. In countries where such regulation exists, implementation is still a challenge. The report focused on unsustainable extraction in China and India, two countries facing serious challenges in curbing illegal extraction, but this is really a global problem that needs global solutions. Here in the UAE, extraction is not an issue as <a href="https://www.thenational.ae/lifestyle/dunes-and-don-ts-the-nitty-gritty-about-sand-1.516940">desert sand</a> is too fine to be used for construction but the country imports $500 million worth of sand annually to fill its beaches and for use in construction work, which could have a knock-on impact elsewhere. One alternative is to encourage companies worldwide to use more sustainable or alternative materials and work with recycled or repurposed matter. Construction waste, for example, can be reused in building work. Effective monitoring of resources and implementation of policies is also needed, with rules for trade and extraction standardised worldwide. Saving our planet goes beyond oceans; it means taking a stand for our <a href="https://www.thenational.ae/lifestyle/luxury/fashion-shoot-shifting-sands-in-sharjah-in-pictures-1.862272">deserts</a> and beaches too.
