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Solar & wind
Utility-scale generation across emerging markets.
Impact brief · UNEP / Marine Sand Watch
Six billion tonnes. One million trucks a day.
Around six billion tonnes of sand is dredged from the world’s oceans every year, endangering marine life and coastal communities, the UN says.
Around six billion tonnes of sand is dredged from the world’s oceans every year, endangering marine life and coastal communities, the UN says.
Sand is the most exploited natural resource in the world after water and is used to produce concrete and glass.
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said some vessels were acting as vacuum cleaners, dredging both sand and micro-organisms that fish feed on.
This means that life may never recover in some areas.
The new data coincides with the launch of a new analysis tool called Marine Sand Watch that monitors dredging activities using marine tracking and artificial intelligence.
The new platform estimates that out of some 50bn tonnes of sand and gravel used by humanity each year, an average of six billion tonnes come from the world’s oceans and seas.
This is the equivalent of “more than one million dump trucks every day”.
“The scale of environmental impacts of shallow sea mining activities and dredging is alarming.”
6B
tonnes of marine sand dredged yearly
50B
tonnes of sand and gravel used annually
1M+
dump trucks represented each day
Item 12 · Marine Sand Mining Venture
Rights, royalty, and restraint.
Strategic acquisition of a marine sand company with dredging rights and other mining rights — a 25-year royalty period, with potential revenue of PHP 80 billion. Estimated acquisition value USD 33 million.
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) launched Marine Sand Watch to monitor dredging with marine tracking and artificial intelligence. LNBG’s Philippines programme treats this context as a design constraint: evaluation of risk, legality and environmental impact sits with the Management Board before any capital is deployed.
- Zones
- Pampanga onshore (Masantol) and Bulacan offshore & onshore (Hagonoy, Paombong).
- Platform
- Marine Sand Watch — UNEP GRID-Geneva, tracking vessels that act as vacuum cleaners of sand and micro-organisms.