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The Deadly Global War for Sand

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The Deadly Global War for Sand

Wired,

5 min read
5 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

As the global demand for sand rises, attempts to control illegal sand mining continue to falter.

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Eye Opening
  • Eloquent

Recommendation

The push to build bigger, better cities around the world has created a global black market for a surprising construction component: sand. Award-winning freelance journalist Vince Beiser takes readers inside the world of illegal sand mining and explores how sand mining has negatively affected people and environments in many countries, including India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. He explains why it’s so difficult to put a stop to unlawful practices. getAbstract recommends this article to political leaders, environmentalists and all those involved in the construction industry.

Summary

On July 31, 2013, in a small Indian village, a gang of men shot and killed 52-year-old farmer Paleram Chauhan inside his own home. As a local activist, he had been fighting against the local “sand mafia” – a collection of criminals who, a decade earlier, took control of a large parcel of community land and began using it for illegal sand mining.

Chauhan was not the first, nor will he be the last, victim of the sand mafia in India. While Westerners don’t tend to think of sand as precious, the reality is that, after air and water, humans use sand more than any...

About the Author

Vince Beiser is an award-winning freelance journalist who has written for Wired, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Harper’s and The Atlantic. He has also been a senior editor for Mother Jones.

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