A recent violent attack on a group of indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest of northern Brazil is seen by environmentalists as a symptom of a new climate of hostility towards such groups, fuelled by conservative congressmen’s attempts to undermine land rights.

As indigenous reserves, which occupy 23% of the greater Amazon region, are spaces where most of the rainforest is still intact, this represents a growing threat to the forest’s future – and therefore could impact on climate change.

The attack, by farmers armed with guns, knives and machetes in the northern state of Maranhão left up to 13 Gamela Indians in hospital with bullet and knife wounds.

The Gamela, who number about 1,200 people, have been occupying cattle farms established on what they claim is their traditional land. In the disputed areas, forest has been cleared and replaced with cattle pasture.

Rainforest preservation

The attack is part of a disturbing trend in Brazil that indirectly threatens the preservation of large areas of the Amazon rainforest.

Satellite maps produced by ISA, an environmental NGO, clearly show the relation between indigenous areas and the preservation of the forest. The Indians preserve the forest because they need its natural resources.

A 2014 study by Imazon, another Brazilian NGO, showed that in the Amazon region indigenous reserves accounted for under 2% of deforestation, while privately-owned areas accounted for 59%. Even in government-run conservation areas it was 27%, because of the frequency of illegal invasions by loggers and farmers.

But by October 2016, satellite images from INPE, the Brazil Space Research Institute, that is responsible for monitoring the Amazon region, showed that deforestation in indigenous reserves had almost tripled, mainly due to illegal logging and invasions. INPE detected an overall increase of almost 30% in deforestation for the region.

A study carried out in 2015 by IPAM, an NGO set up after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to produce scientific knowledge about the Amazon  – found that the indigenous areas, estimated to contain 13 billion tonnes of carbon, will have avoided 431 million tonnes of carbon emissions between 2006 and 2020.

In addition to their role in absorbing carbon and their low rates of deforestation, indigenous areas have a healthy effect on their surrounding areas, according to IPAM researcher Paulo Moutinho. He says: “Forests maintained by the Indians function like natural air conditioning and as climate regulators of the region they are in.”

Yet in spite of the obvious advantages of respecting indigenous areas, not just for their inhabitants but for the whole of Brazil and for the global climate, government and politicians seem more interested in clearing the forest for agricultural and mining projects.

Sonia Guajajara, a co-ordinator at the Network of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil (APIB), says: “Although the whole world is discussing the reduction of deforestation to contain global warming, and Brazil has presented targets for reducing illegal deforestation, we are not even managing to do this. It is very worrying.”

She blames the relaxation of environmental laws, the advance of agribusiness, the building of dams that lead to deforestation of large surrounding areas, and the government’s development policies, as well as an increase in illegal logging in the reserves.

Reducing land rights

In order to free more land for cattle ranchers and soy producers, the powerful landowners’ lobby, which now dominates both the congress and the government, has tabled 189 bills aimed at reducing the land rights and autonomy of indigenous and other traditional communities. Other proposed bills will also relax environmental legislation.

A parliamentary committee of inquiry dominated by the rural lobby has also accused anthropologists and missionaries who work with indigenous groups of being in the pay of foreign interests, and has proposed that Brazil’s Indian affairs agency, Funai, should be closed down.

A peaceful demonstration by more than 3,000 indigenous people from all over Brazil in front of the congress building in Brasilia on 24 April was met with teargas and rubber bullets, and the demonstrators were prevented from entering the Senate to take part in a public hearing.

Funai’s budget has been cut by 44% as part of the government’s austerity programme.

The Minister of Justice, who is responsible for Funai, is reported to have held over 100 meetings with farmers and producers, but none with representatives of Brazil`s indigenous people, who number about 900,000 out of a total population of just over 200 million. The 252 groups speak over 150 languages.

The Amazon contains not only the largest indigenous community, the 50,000 strong Ticuna, but also small groups of ‘isolated’ Indians, who still shun contact with the outside world.

One of Funai’s tasks is to protect these groups from the advance of loggers and miners, but the cuts have led it to close most of its forward posts in the region, leaving up to 5,000 isolated Indians on Brazil’s border with Peru at the mercy of invaders.

Jan Rocha is a freelance journalist living in Brazil and is a former correspondent there for the BBC World Service and The Guardian. She now writes for Climate News Network where this article was originally published (CC BY-ND).

A recent violent attack on a group of indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest of northern Brazil is seen by environmentalists as a symptom of a new climate of hostility towards such groups, fuelled by conservative congressmen’s attempts to undermine land rights.

As indigenous reserves, which occupy 23% of the greater Amazon region, are spaces where most of the rainforest is still intact, this represents a growing threat to the forest’s future – and therefore could impact on climate change.

The attack, by farmers armed with guns, knives and machetes in the northern state of Maranhão left up to 13 Gamela Indians in hospital with bullet and knife wounds.

The Gamela, who number about 1,200 people, have been occupying cattle farms established on what they claim is their traditional land. In the disputed areas, forest has been cleared and replaced with cattle pasture.

Rainforest preservation

The attack is part of a disturbing trend in Brazil that indirectly threatens the preservation of large areas of the Amazon rainforest.

Satellite maps produced by ISA, an environmental NGO, clearly show the relation between indigenous areas and the preservation of the forest. The Indians preserve the forest because they need its natural resources.

A 2014 study by Imazon, another Brazilian NGO, showed that in the Amazon region indigenous reserves accounted for under 2% of deforestation, while privately-owned areas accounted for 59%. Even in government-run conservation areas it was 27%, because of the frequency of illegal invasions by loggers and farmers.

But by October 2016, satellite images from INPE, the Brazil Space Research Institute, that is responsible for monitoring the Amazon region, showed that deforestation in indigenous reserves had almost tripled, mainly due to illegal logging and invasions. INPE detected an overall increase of almost 30% in deforestation for the region.

A study carried out in 2015 by IPAM, an NGO set up after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to produce scientific knowledge about the Amazon  – found that the indigenous areas, estimated to contain 13 billion tonnes of carbon, will have avoided 431 million tonnes of carbon emissions between 2006 and 2020.

In addition to their role in absorbing carbon and their low rates of deforestation, indigenous areas have a healthy effect on their surrounding areas, according to IPAM researcher Paulo Moutinho. He says: “Forests maintained by the Indians function like natural air conditioning and as climate regulators of the region they are in.”

Yet in spite of the obvious advantages of respecting indigenous areas, not just for their inhabitants but for the whole of Brazil and for the global climate, government and politicians seem more interested in clearing the forest for agricultural and mining projects.

Sonia Guajajara, a co-ordinator at the Network of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil (APIB), says: “Although the whole world is discussing the reduction of deforestation to contain global warming, and Brazil has presented targets for reducing illegal deforestation, we are not even managing to do this. It is very worrying.”

She blames the relaxation of environmental laws, the advance of agribusiness, the building of dams that lead to deforestation of large surrounding areas, and the government’s development policies, as well as an increase in illegal logging in the reserves.

Reducing land rights

In order to free more land for cattle ranchers and soy producers, the powerful landowners’ lobby, which now dominates both the congress and the government, has tabled 189 bills aimed at reducing the land rights and autonomy of indigenous and other traditional communities. Other proposed bills will also relax environmental legislation.

A parliamentary committee of inquiry dominated by the rural lobby has also accused anthropologists and missionaries who work with indigenous groups of being in the pay of foreign interests, and has proposed that Brazil’s Indian affairs agency, Funai, should be closed down.

A peaceful demonstration by more than 3,000 indigenous people from all over Brazil in front of the congress building in Brasilia on 24 April was met with teargas and rubber bullets, and the demonstrators were prevented from entering the Senate to take part in a public hearing.

Funai’s budget has been cut by 44% as part of the government’s austerity programme.

The Minister of Justice, who is responsible for Funai, is reported to have held over 100 meetings with farmers and producers, but none with representatives of Brazil`s indigenous people, who number about 900,000 out of a total population of just over 200 million. The 252 groups speak over 150 languages.

The Amazon contains not only the largest indigenous community, the 50,000 strong Ticuna, but also small groups of ‘isolated’ Indians, who still shun contact with the outside world.

One of Funai’s tasks is to protect these groups from the advance of loggers and miners, but the cuts have led it to close most of its forward posts in the region, leaving up to 5,000 isolated Indians on Brazil’s border with Peru at the mercy of invaders.

Jan Rocha is a freelance journalist living in Brazil and is a former correspondent there for the BBC World Service and The Guardian. She now writes for Climate News Network where this article was originally published (CC BY-ND).

A recent violent attack on a group of indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest of northern Brazil is seen by environmentalists as a symptom of a new climate of hostility towards such groups, fuelled by conservative congressmen’s attempts to undermine land rights.

As indigenous reserves, which occupy 23% of the greater Amazon region, are spaces where most of the rainforest is still intact, this represents a growing threat to the forest’s future – and therefore could impact on climate change.

The attack, by farmers armed with guns, knives and machetes in the northern state of Maranhão left up to 13 Gamela Indians in hospital with bullet and knife wounds.

The Gamela, who number about 1,200 people, have been occupying cattle farms established on what they claim is their traditional land. In the disputed areas, forest has been cleared and replaced with cattle pasture.

Rainforest preservation

The attack is part of a disturbing trend in Brazil that indirectly threatens the preservation of large areas of the Amazon rainforest.

Satellite maps produced by ISA, an environmental NGO, clearly show the relation between indigenous areas and the preservation of the forest. The Indians preserve the forest because they need its natural resources.

A 2014 study by Imazon, another Brazilian NGO, showed that in the Amazon region indigenous reserves accounted for under 2% of deforestation, while privately-owned areas accounted for 59%. Even in government-run conservation areas it was 27%, because of the frequency of illegal invasions by loggers and farmers.

But by October 2016, satellite images from INPE, the Brazil Space Research Institute, that is responsible for monitoring the Amazon region, showed that deforestation in indigenous reserves had almost tripled, mainly due to illegal logging and invasions. INPE detected an overall increase of almost 30% in deforestation for the region.

A study carried out in 2015 by IPAM, an NGO set up after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to produce scientific knowledge about the Amazon  – found that the indigenous areas, estimated to contain 13 billion tonnes of carbon, will have avoided 431 million tonnes of carbon emissions between 2006 and 2020.

In addition to their role in absorbing carbon and their low rates of deforestation, indigenous areas have a healthy effect on their surrounding areas, according to IPAM researcher Paulo Moutinho. He says: “Forests maintained by the Indians function like natural air conditioning and as climate regulators of the region they are in.”

Yet in spite of the obvious advantages of respecting indigenous areas, not just for their inhabitants but for the whole of Brazil and for the global climate, government and politicians seem more interested in clearing the forest for agricultural and mining projects.

Sonia Guajajara, a co-ordinator at the Network of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil (APIB), says: “Although the whole world is discussing the reduction of deforestation to contain global warming, and Brazil has presented targets for reducing illegal deforestation, we are not even managing to do this. It is very worrying.”

She blames the relaxation of environmental laws, the advance of agribusiness, the building of dams that lead to deforestation of large surrounding areas, and the government’s development policies, as well as an increase in illegal logging in the reserves.

Reducing land rights

In order to free more land for cattle ranchers and soy producers, the powerful landowners’ lobby, which now dominates both the congress and the government, has tabled 189 bills aimed at reducing the land rights and autonomy of indigenous and other traditional communities. Other proposed bills will also relax environmental legislation.

A parliamentary committee of inquiry dominated by the rural lobby has also accused anthropologists and missionaries who work with indigenous groups of being in the pay of foreign interests, and has proposed that Brazil’s Indian affairs agency, Funai, should be closed down.

A peaceful demonstration by more than 3,000 indigenous people from all over Brazil in front of the congress building in Brasilia on 24 April was met with teargas and rubber bullets, and the demonstrators were prevented from entering the Senate to take part in a public hearing.

Funai’s budget has been cut by 44% as part of the government’s austerity programme.

The Minister of Justice, who is responsible for Funai, is reported to have held over 100 meetings with farmers and producers, but none with representatives of Brazil`s indigenous people, who number about 900,000 out of a total population of just over 200 million. The 252 groups speak over 150 languages.

The Amazon contains not only the largest indigenous community, the 50,000 strong Ticuna, but also small groups of ‘isolated’ Indians, who still shun contact with the outside world.

One of Funai’s tasks is to protect these groups from the advance of loggers and miners, but the cuts have led it to close most of its forward posts in the region, leaving up to 5,000 isolated Indians on Brazil’s border with Peru at the mercy of invaders.

Jan Rocha is a freelance journalist living in Brazil and is a former correspondent there for the BBC World Service and The Guardian. She now writes for Climate News Network where this article was originally published (CC BY-ND).

Seed is crucial. Nine out of every ten mouthfuls of food we eat relies on seed. Without it, we don’t eat.

Despite this knowledge the UK has become heavily reliant on importing seed.

One of this year’s three finalists in the BBC Future Food category of the BBC Food and Farming Awards – the Seed Co-operative – is bucking the trend and producing and selling organic and biodynamic open pollinated vegetable, herb and flower seed in the UK.

Based on a small Lincolnshire farm, the Co-operative is run by a small team of staff and volunteers, is currently in organic conversion, and provides a hub for a growing UK-wide network of seed producers.

As a Community Benefit Society the financial backing is provided through donations, grants and community shares.

David Price, who runs the Co-operative is passionate about his work. With a nature conservation background, he says: “I felt increasingly like I was working in a casualty unit when what is needed is long-term hospitalisation and life support. Nature reserves are critical to retaining whatever we can, but they are not going to sustain biodiversity forever.  Sustainability will need systemic change across our natural environment to achieve that. 

“I was trying to work out how I might play a part in this sort of change when I met Peter Brown (Biodynamic Association) and Hans Steenbergen (Stormy Hall Seeds) who were looking to establish the Seed Co-operative.

“Diversity is the striking thing that links my previous work with the work of the Seed Co-operative.  We only sell open pollinated seed, which is rich in genetic diversity, providing the ability to adapt due to its diversity, and this, working with natural processes, provides the basis for both a resilient food system, and a sustainable biodiversity. 

“The diversity of our food crops is falling rapidly. It is estimated that since 1900 we have lost access to over 90% of the varieties of seed available across the globe.  We now have F1 hybrid seed and biotech seed, but both of these are denuded of their genetic diversity and dependent on human intervention for development – they do not naturally evolve as open pollinated seed does.”

David believes that many people feel a sense of disconnection with the food they eat and that there is a growing number of people who want to know more about the origin of their food. He says: “We can change this. You can know the person who grew your veg, and they can tell you what variety it is and where the seed came from. If they bought the seed from us they could even tell you which farm the seed was grown on, and potentially, we could tell you the name of the farmer/plant breeder who bred the variety and where. 

“This is what can reconnect people with what is real and what sustains them. Food is not a manufacturing process; or at least it shouldn’t be. Food is not created in labs or factories by anonymous white coats in sterile conditions; or at least it shouldn’t be. Food should be grown in a living soil by ‘people who eat’ for ‘people who eat’ working with natural systems to ensure tasty, healthy and vital ingredients for three meals a day for everyone.

“Food is about people – they cannot be separated. Without seed we will have neither. As more people start to realise that today, only three global corporations sell 75% of the world’s seed it raises many questions about our food and democracy and who controls what.”

David’s idea is resonating with many people and the Seed Co-operative is based on a model that has worked in Europe. He explains: “Companies that supply us with seed have similar networks of small-scale growers. Bingenheimer Saatgut in Germany started with similar levels of imported seed but now produces 80% of the seed it selsl through its network and has a very significant turnover. 

“When people consider that open pollinated seed adapts and tunes in to the conditions in which it is grown they can see the madness of not producing our own seed and want to get involved in making it happen. They can do this through buying shares and buying seed. We now have over 230 shareholders and sales on our web site are 400% up on last year.”

Although the organic market is growing rapidly, with more resistance to GMO, David says the economics of the food system are utterly broken: “If what we want is a sustainable and resilient food system that will feed people healthy, nutritious and tasty food, and a food system with natural resilience designed in then we need to use methods that harness natural processes, not fight them. This is what open pollinated seed does, and this only works in organic farming systems.”

The Seed Co-operative is at the beginning of a process.  Currently it is looking to expand the volumes of seed produced in the UK for organic production, and as it progresses farmers can again assume the role of plant breeders, developing new varieties.

Economic drivers have meant that conventional plant breeding tends to concentrate on yield, shelf life and the ability to withstand mechanical harvesting which has led to loss of flavour, texture and nutrition.

David adds: “I guess it is about what sort of future people want, who they want to control their future and how we provide for future generations. Unless of course we can give up eating, then perhaps we don’t need to worry.”

For more information on the Seed Co-operative visit http://www.seedcooperative.org.uk/

This Author

Laura Briggs is a regular contributor to the Ecologist.

Follow her here @WordsbyBriggs

It’s a sign of just how bizarre modern politics has become, but the current President of the United States has appeared in a Wrestlemania XXIII bout, where, fully suited, he body slammed World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Vince McMahon and then proceeded to shave his opponent’s head in the middle of the ring which makes it seem only fitting that we’re now awaiting a tag team showdown in the White House on the fate of the Paris Agreement between Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner vs Steve Bannon and Scott Pruitt.

Despite the world gathering in Bonn, Germany, this week to continue working on the global response to ever increasing climate change, the shadow hanging over the talks is a meeting rumoured to determine the fate of America’s involvement with the Paris Agreement.

Arguing for Trump to remain inside the historic accord signed by President Obama in 2015 is unlikely climate champion Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner. Arguing for withdrawal are the climate change denial duo, Steve Bannon, the former boss of Breitbart and Scott Pruitt, Trump’s new head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The head to head meeting was due to happen weeks ago. It was then put off until Tuesday of this week, but has just been postponed again. The debate in the White House is reportedly about the ‘ratchet mechanism’ agreed in Paris to increase national actions over time.

We all knew that the Paris deal alone would not deliver a safe climate but by upping efforts every five years the world will be able to bend that curve to deliver a planet with warming well below 2 degrees. The whole point of a ratchet is that it only moves in one direction and so we cannot allow for a scenario where the US stays in but allows the fossil fuel industry to disrupt the global consensus and slow down progress.

Yes we want to keep the USA within the Paris Agreement, for that country’s own benefit and for the rest of the world, but we cannot do so at any cost. Allowing global environment rules to be dictated by a tiny band of climate change deniers in the White House is a recipe for disaster. 

There are of course multiple benefits to Trump’s America if it keeps its commitments. As well as avoiding the massive diplomatic fallout of a US U-turn, the Paris Agreement will help to drive innovation and entrepreneurship in low carbon technology, one of the fastest growth areas in the US. There are already more jobs in American renewables than in coal, oil and gas and the green sector is generating jobs 12 times faster than the rest of the economy. No doubt that will continue to some degree whatever Trump decides, but Federal backing to the Paris Agreement will ensure pressure continues to push that progress in the right direction.

Other countries are already positioning themselves to reap the benefits of tackling climate change and embracing global decarbonisation. New French President Emmanuel Macron, not only told Trump by phone he would defend the Paris Agreement, he recorded a video inviting American climate scientists, researchers and engineers to come and work in France. 

Elsewhere China and India are already over-delivering on their Paris pledges; in recent months China cancelled more than 100 coal power plants. In India, one of the world’s fastest growing carbon emitters, a Delhi-based research centre has pointed out that the country already has enough coal capacity under construction to meet demand until 2026 by which point renewables and energy storage could be cheap enough to meet demand.

If Trump is serious about delivering his promise of creating 25 million new American jobs then he can’t ignore the clean energy sector – and the Paris Agreement will be crucial in driving that job-creating engine.

This Author

Joe Ware is an Ecologist New Voices contributor, a journalist and writer at Christian Aid

He can be followed on Twitter at @wareisjoe.

Dubai is a fairytale world. Back in 1995 a jeep brought me to a region where you do not want to run out of fuel: Rub’ al Khali or the Empty Quarter. Think of Lawrence of Arabia and a thirsty death. This is the largest continuous sand desert in the world, a sandpit as big as France.

Today, Dubai has a mile-long artificial peninsula in the form of a palm tree that is packed with hotels and expensive villas. When the global recession hit Dubai in 2009, the world stood still. Well, at least the work on Dubai’s artificial island project called “The World” stopped. By that time, it had already moved a massive 321 million tons of sand, but the islands were left empty.

Elsewhere, the building boom went on. The Burj Khalifa is now the highest tower in the world. According to its website, there are about 330,000 cubic meters of cement in the tower – one fourth of it comprises sand. How easy for the Burj and other Dubai skyscrapers to have all that sand in their backyard, right?

As it turns out, the tons of sand in the Burj Khalifa came from Australia because there is not enough sand for concrete available in that region itself. The largest continuous sand desert in the world is unusable for concrete. It is not even good enough to build those islands. The wind has free play in the desert and makes the sand grains too round, so that they do not stick together.

Marine sand is better but the lion’s share of the marine sand on the coast of Dubai has already been used up for the palm islands. And the salt in sea sand does not work well with the steel in reinforced concrete. Dubai desalinates its water but that is way too costly a method to use to clean marine sand. It also requires oil, and unfortunately for Dubai, its oil stock is dwindling. The city already imports more petroleum products than it exports and in a decade or two the wells will be dry.

The World Expo in 2020, to be held in Dubai, will probably be one of the world’s most pompous of shows. A tower even higher tower than the Burj Khalifa is being built for it.

In 2012, the British business bank Barclays amended the popular adage that “pride comes before a fall” with a study that shows that “high-rises come before a fall” – demonstrating that there is a strong chance of financial crashes following a boom in the construction of skyscrapers. If you look past the palaces in Dubai and its sinking oil, water and construction sand reserves, then the question is not whether but when the desert will blast Dubai’s bling into decor more suitable for an apocalyptic film.

Singapore: stockpiling sand

Nearly 6,000 km to the South East of Dubai is Singapore, which stockpiles sand. It imports massive amounts of this resource and keeps it as a reserve, comparable to a strategic stock of oil. Singapore needs sand to continue to grow – the city-state has increased its land mass by 22% in the past 50 years.

Initially, this was easy. Its neighbours sold it their sand. But in 1997, Malaysia officially stopped selling sand to Singapore. Indonesia and Cambodia stopped in 2007, and Vietnam in 2009. The entire international sand business became a political mine field. Populations tend to dislike the idea of selling pieces of their country for the purpose of expanding another country, especially if violence against them and their environment is involved.

In some cases, the export went underground. The non-governmental organisation Global Witness found that in Cambodia – the most corrupt country in South East Asia according to anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International – contracts worth millions were still ongoing, with officials involved. In practice, companies dig sand in vulnerable natural areas and local fishermen lose their key capital: fish. Investigative reporting has shown that this happened in Vietnam, also as a result of the illegal export of sand to Singapore.

The sand mafia also swept 24 Indonesian islands off the map to sell the sand in Singapore. This caused a dispute over the exact location of the international border between Singapore and Indonesia. At one point, Singapore had to pay $190 per tonne of sand, making it more expensive than a barrel of crude oil. Singapore’s sand story has occasionally made it to the news, but today it becomes ever more obvious that the scarcity of sand across the world is spreading and affecting all of us. The growing sand shortage is putting sand in the machine called “the industrialised civilisation”. The shortage is already leading to deadly conflicts in some areas of the world.

The sand mafia in India

Sumaira Abdulali, 55, is now a public figure in India. The media call her the ‘Minister of Noise’ because of her activism against noise pollution in Mumbai. But she first became famous for her fight against the sand mafia. In 2004, she noticed that the beach near her house in Alibaug, near Mumbai, was shrinking. She heard trucks at night that she suspected were carting the sand away, and decided to take action. She called the police, took her car and drove to where the road ended at the beach.

“Instead of rushing to the scene of the crime, the police warned [off] the illegal sand miners”, said Abdulali. As she waited in her car for the police to arrive, the men present at the mining site pulled her out and assaulted her. She survived the beatings, but needed to be hospitalised. As she was beaten, one of the miners asked: “Do you know who I am?” He was the son of a local politician, also the owner of a construction company.

Two years later, Abdulali started a lawsuit against the sand mafia in Maharashtra. In 2010, the Bombay High Court banned sand mining: first only in areas that came under the ecologically-sensitive Coastal Regulation Zone and later in the entire state of Maharashtra, whose capital, Mumbai, is the base of the Hindi film industry, popularly known as Bollywood. With more than 20 million inhabitants, Mumbai is also one of the 10 largest cities in the world – with a huge appetite for sand by its construction industry. Despite that, the ban on sand mining remained in force until protective measures were turned into laws, which did not happen until 2015.

Abdulali sums up the effects of sand extraction in India: soil erosion, landslides, water table loss, infertility of farmland, disturbances of ecosystems and marine life, beach disappearances – all the way to collapsing bridges.

Once Abdulali made a surreal video of a train crossing the Vaitarna railway bridge while machines were extracting sand from the riverbed. That bridge is in Virar, north of Mumbai, and the city’s sole link to North India. Last August, when the Mahad bridge, across the Savitri river, on the Mumbai-Goa highway collapsed, killing at least 28 people, several activists including Abdulali blamed the incident on sand mining on the riverbed. Around that time, railway officials also admitted that they were concerned that the Vaitarna bridge’s foundation had been weakened by illegal sand mining on the riverbed. A senior Western Railways officer told The Hindu newspaper: “We believe there is a nexus between the sand mafia and certain state government departments. Due to the illegal sand mining, the flow of the Vaitarna has been altered, which is a dangerous sign for the bridge’s health.”

In 2010, Abdulali took a journalist and photographer on a field visit to Raigad – the Maharashtra district where the Mahad bridge is located – where sand extraction was in progress despite the ban. They pretended to be looking to buy land, but then filmed illegal and industrial exploitation of sand. Their return to Mumbai did not go well. Their car was attacked and they were forced into a car chase on a dirt track, with two cars trying to push them into a ravine. Abdulali said that on the main road, a truck was also waiting to crash into them, but it also missed. “What saved our lives is that my husband is a professional rally driver and he taught me some of his driving skills,” said Abdulali. “Again, the police were in cahoots the mafia. I wanted to report an attempted murder attack, but they wanted to give me a speeding ticket! Once again, a powerful local politician controlled the illegal trade in sand.”

The Bombay High court later severely criticised the police for the attack on Abdulali and her companions. Abdulali’s story is unfortunately not an isolated case. In India, anti-sand mining activists are often physically attacked and even killed.

Earlier this year, journalist Sandhya Ravishankar, who wrote a four-part series on illegal sand mining along Tamil Nadu’s southern beaches, which was published in the online magazine The Wire, said that she had been receiving death threats and was facing online abuse, which she blamed on a sand-mining company that she had named in her reports. She filed a complaint in connection with the threats and harassment with the Chennai police in March.

Abdulali says that the people in control of the business usually make sure that they also get into the local village council, or at even higher political levels. For instance, the father of one of the men who beat her up in 2004 became a minister of state in Maharashtra. He claims he is out of the sand business now, but still owns the largest sand storage site. He has shifted his business interests to the next goldmine: stones.

Abdulali said that recycling construction material would help reduce the demand for new sand. “To reduce the demand for new sand, you need to evolve into a circular economy,” she said. “Big cities in India crush many old buildings to make room for new, but the debris ends up at landfills. In some countries, the use of primary material is only allowed after the demolition waste is used up.

“In the Netherlands, 90% of all demolition waste is recycled. Even poorer countries like Vietnam are now reusing demolition waste. You can build roads with a lot less sand, by recycling plastic as a resource. We have to do that. If we continue like this, India will dig a grave for itself and pay a very expensive price. The circular economy is a much better option.”

Today you can also drink beer for the sake of beaches. A machine reduces empty beer bottles to a kind of sand that is useful in construction. But a circular economy also needs energy. The beer campaigners do have a point: beaches worldwide are in trouble. Rivers transport sand to the sea. Take the sand out and you end up without a beach. In Sri Lanka, they found that out the hard way.

The most eroded coastline in all of Sri Lanka is around the delta of the Maha Oya river, which, not by accident, is also the river with the most sand mining. In some places the beach recedes by 12 metres to 15 metres each year. Thousands of families here have lost their land by the sea. When the damage became too rampant and too evident, a ban on mechanical sand extraction in the river was called for. But here too, the sand mafia keeps digging.

The sand mafia is not limited to South Asia. In Elmina Bay in Ghana, the sand mafia even digs sand just in front of the few beach resorts the country has. Hotels have lost 30 metres of beach. The sea now comes to their doorstep. The Environmental Justice Atlas contains the details of at least 64 conflicts around sand, gravel and quarries. Even the most mined material in the world has become scarce. The resulting struggle for what is left is getting ugly. In the future, that could be a violent struggle in a big way.

The coming sand wars

Worldwide, we use twice as much sand as all the rivers in the world transport together. As a result, we have started digging elsewhere. The majority of all the sand we now use is marine sand. As a result, two thirds of all beaches in the world lose sand.

Northwest Europe fetches more than 100 million cubic meters of marine sediment from the North East Atlantic, mainly sand from the shallow North Sea. But marine sand is less suitable for concrete because salty sand does not go well with concrete reinforced with steel. To use marine sand in construction, you need to wash it with fresh water. Unfortunately for us, that is another problem.

Seventy percent of the earth is covered with water, but essentially only 0.007% of that is fresh water available for consumption. Fred Pearce, the acclaimed author of When the rivers run dry: Water, the defining crisis of the twenty first century, pointed out a while ago that if everyone today lived like the average meat, beer and milk consuming westerner, all the water in all the rivers in the whole world would not be enough. Forget the one or two litres of water you drink every day. Making one average ice cream uses up 1,000 litres of water, one steak takes 5,000 litres.

The world’s soils provide twice as much food today as they did a generation ago, but in that period we also diverted three times more water from rivers and the surface to agriculture. At one point, hard choices will need to be made between using fresh water for food crops or for washing marine sand. The interests of the construction industry and those of farmers will clash.

Another hard choice to be made is that between the beaches and our buildings. Oddly enough, in the US, despite a federal ban on sand mining on beaches, there is just one company openly digging away on a beach in California, using a legal loophole. The building company that is literally making America smaller has its headquarters in Mexico.

But that conflict is an anecdotal side-show compared to the one between the world’s two superpowers. The demand for sand increases annually by more than 5%, mainly due to rapid urbanisation. In 20 years, the production of cement – which requires sand – has tripled. China uses about half of all sand used globally and makes 58% of all the cement in the world. Shanghai built more skyscrapers in 10 years than New York ever did.

The Chinese hunger for sand is immense, and sand mines on the mainland are no longer low-hanging fruit. Poyang Lake, China’s largest lake, is also the largest sand mine in the world. Two hundred and thirty-six million cubic metres of sand are extracted from it every year. Because of this, the water table near the lake has dropped, hurting fauna and flora, and also the locals who live in the vicinity.

China today imports one billion tonnes of sand a year. That is five times more than its annual coal imports. In the South China Sea, China is busy pumping sand on pieces of rock that would otherwise stay under the water – thus creating islands. These islands strengthen its claim on the disputed South China Sea, securing shipping lanes, and access to new oil and gas reserves.

The tensions with other countries claiming parts of the same sea have increased in recent years, sometimes resulting in deaths – as was the case in a conflict between China and Vietnam.

But the bigger issue is the rising tension between China and the US. The Trump administration does not appear very willing to accommodate China as a rising superpower. Trump’s strategist and right-hand man Steve Bannon once said that the US and China will be at war within five to 10 years, and that such a war would begin in the South China Sea. Trump’s Foreign Minister Rex Tillerson, formerly the CEO of oil giant Exxon, claimed that China should not be allowed access to the islands it is building in that sea. This prompted China to remind Washington that the US was not a party to the conflict in the South China Sea and it would be wise to keep it that way.

Since World War II, the US has been the dominant navy in Asia and in the South China Sea. However, China’s construction of islands in the South China Sea is accompanied by an expansion of its military presence in the area. Although most media attention regarding those troubled waters is related to potential oil sources and the strategic importance of the disputed islands to China, The Economist wrote in February 2015 that there is another reason why China is so eager to control that sea: sand.

Sand Wars was the title of a popular 2013 documentary by the European channel ARTE. It prompted the United Nations to draft a report called Sand. Rarer than one thinks. It all makes this author think about one book from the 1930s. In that era of emerging fascism, in his book War with the Newts, the Nobel Prize-nominated author Karel Capek satirised the shortsightedness of appeasement, the slow erosion of norms and a raw capitalist expansion strategy that ended with the loss of our coastlines by the very same creature humans created. Little could he know that a century later, facts are trying to catch up with his science-fiction.

This Author

Nick Meynen is one of the Ecologist’s New Voices contributors. He works at the EnvJustice project in the European Environment Bureau but he is also a journalist and an author. The sand series is part of his new book the title of which translates to: Frontlines. A journey through the shadows of the world economy

A new type of Roundup is on sale in Austrian garden centres. It’s the same old bottle with the same familiar brand name and is marketed by Scotts, under licence from Monsanto.

The only difference compared with the old-style Roundup is that the new one has a prominent label on the front saying it’s formulated “without glyphosate” (“ohne Glyphosat” in German).

On the back, on the ingredients label, the ‘active substance’ is defined as none other than vinegar: ‘Essigsäure’.

The new product was bought by Dr Helmut Burtscher, a biochemist who works for the Vienna-based NGO GLOBAL 2000, (the Austrian affiliate to Friends of the Earth International) in a garden centre in Vienna.

He learned of the glyphosate-free Roundup in a brochure sent to his house advertising new products. His reaction? “I laughed – but then I went quickly to the store to see if it was really true or a joke. It was real.”

In fact, organic and other gardeners have long been using vinegar as a weedkiller, which works by sucking moisture out of plants’ leaves. It’s most effective if used in dry weather when plants are already water-stressed, and the vinegar won’t get washed off or diluted by rain.

Most recipes also advise adding soap or washing up liquid to help it spread over leaves.

What’s Monsanto’s rationale here?

Why does Burtscher think that Scotts brought out this product? “The World Health Organisations’ cancer agency IARC has stated that glyphosate was a probable human carcinogen. Monsanto has admitted in court that it cannot claim that Roundup doesn’t cause cancer because the complete formulation has never been tested.

“Garden centres are wondering what they can tell their customers. They have undoubtedly lost business. Some have phased out all chemical pesticides, such as Bellaflora, which took this step in cooperation with GLOBAL 2000 long before IARC came out with its verdict.”

Burtscher says that in the case of Bellaflora, the NGO didn’t need to apply much pressure: “The expertise came from the company. Now they only sell organic-approved plant protection products.”

But why does Burtscher think Scotts are calling its new vinegar-based herbicide Roundup? “Maybe Scotts thought: We need this trade name because people see Roundup as more effective than vinegar!”

Toxic adjuvants in the new Roundup? Or just soap?

Burtscher spent about €30 on the glyphosate-free Roundup but says in future he will just buy vinegar if it works out cheaper. It may also be safer, he adds, since “We do not know if the vinegar-based Roundup formulation still contains toxic adjuvants.”

(‘Adjuvants’ are additives present in glyphosate herbicide formulations that are designed to increase the toxicity of glyphosate to plants, for example by ‘fixing’ them to leaves and reduce wash-off in rain. But they can also increase the toxicity to animals, as in the case of tallowamine often used with glyphosate.)

But if Scotts can prove the safety of the adjuvants, Burtscher says it’s a win-win situation: “It’s a victory for Monsanto because now it has a product that doesn’t cause harm and a victory for people and the environment.”

One thing is certain: glyphosate-free Roundup is a product whose time has come.

Claire Robinson is managing editor at GMWatch, a public news and information service on issues surrounding GM crops and foods.

This article was originally published by GMWatch.

A new type of Roundup is on sale in Austrian garden centres. It’s the same old bottle with the same familiar brand name and is marketed by Scotts, under licence from Monsanto.

The only difference compared with the old-style Roundup is that the new one has a prominent label on the front saying it’s formulated “without glyphosate” (“ohne Glyphosat” in German).

On the back, on the ingredients label, the ‘active substance’ is defined as none other than vinegar: ‘Essigsäure’.

The new product was bought by Dr Helmut Burtscher, a biochemist who works for the Vienna-based NGO GLOBAL 2000, (the Austrian affiliate to Friends of the Earth International) in a garden centre in Vienna.

He learned of the glyphosate-free Roundup in a brochure sent to his house advertising new products. His reaction? “I laughed – but then I went quickly to the store to see if it was really true or a joke. It was real.”

In fact, organic and other gardeners have long been using vinegar as a weedkiller, which works by sucking moisture out of plants’ leaves. It’s most effective if used in dry weather when plants are already water-stressed, and the vinegar won’t get washed off or diluted by rain.

Most recipes also advise adding soap or washing up liquid to help it spread over leaves.

What’s Monsanto’s rationale here?

Why does Burtscher think that Scotts brought out this product? “The World Health Organisations’ cancer agency IARC has stated that glyphosate was a probable human carcinogen. Monsanto has admitted in court that it cannot claim that Roundup doesn’t cause cancer because the complete formulation has never been tested.

“Garden centres are wondering what they can tell their customers. They have undoubtedly lost business. Some have phased out all chemical pesticides, such as Bellaflora, which took this step in cooperation with GLOBAL 2000 long before IARC came out with its verdict.”

Burtscher says that in the case of Bellaflora, the NGO didn’t need to apply much pressure: “The expertise came from the company. Now they only sell organic-approved plant protection products.”

But why does Burtscher think Scotts are calling its new vinegar-based herbicide Roundup? “Maybe Scotts thought: We need this trade name because people see Roundup as more effective than vinegar!”

Toxic adjuvants in the new Roundup? Or just soap?

Burtscher spent about €30 on the glyphosate-free Roundup but says in future he will just buy vinegar if it works out cheaper. It may also be safer, he adds, since “We do not know if the vinegar-based Roundup formulation still contains toxic adjuvants.”

(‘Adjuvants’ are additives present in glyphosate herbicide formulations that are designed to increase the toxicity of glyphosate to plants, for example by ‘fixing’ them to leaves and reduce wash-off in rain. But they can also increase the toxicity to animals, as in the case of tallowamine often used with glyphosate.)

But if Scotts can prove the safety of the adjuvants, Burtscher says it’s a win-win situation: “It’s a victory for Monsanto because now it has a product that doesn’t cause harm and a victory for people and the environment.”

One thing is certain: glyphosate-free Roundup is a product whose time has come.

Claire Robinson is managing editor at GMWatch, a public news and information service on issues surrounding GM crops and foods.

This article was originally published by GMWatch.

A new type of Roundup is on sale in Austrian garden centres. It’s the same old bottle with the same familiar brand name and is marketed by Scotts, under licence from Monsanto.

The only difference compared with the old-style Roundup is that the new one has a prominent label on the front saying it’s formulated “without glyphosate” (“ohne Glyphosat” in German).

On the back, on the ingredients label, the ‘active substance’ is defined as none other than vinegar: ‘Essigsäure’.

The new product was bought by Dr Helmut Burtscher, a biochemist who works for the Vienna-based NGO GLOBAL 2000, (the Austrian affiliate to Friends of the Earth International) in a garden centre in Vienna.

He learned of the glyphosate-free Roundup in a brochure sent to his house advertising new products. His reaction? “I laughed – but then I went quickly to the store to see if it was really true or a joke. It was real.”

In fact, organic and other gardeners have long been using vinegar as a weedkiller, which works by sucking moisture out of plants’ leaves. It’s most effective if used in dry weather when plants are already water-stressed, and the vinegar won’t get washed off or diluted by rain.

Most recipes also advise adding soap or washing up liquid to help it spread over leaves.

What’s Monsanto’s rationale here?

Why does Burtscher think that Scotts brought out this product? “The World Health Organisations’ cancer agency IARC has stated that glyphosate was a probable human carcinogen. Monsanto has admitted in court that it cannot claim that Roundup doesn’t cause cancer because the complete formulation has never been tested.

“Garden centres are wondering what they can tell their customers. They have undoubtedly lost business. Some have phased out all chemical pesticides, such as Bellaflora, which took this step in cooperation with GLOBAL 2000 long before IARC came out with its verdict.”

Burtscher says that in the case of Bellaflora, the NGO didn’t need to apply much pressure: “The expertise came from the company. Now they only sell organic-approved plant protection products.”

But why does Burtscher think Scotts are calling its new vinegar-based herbicide Roundup? “Maybe Scotts thought: We need this trade name because people see Roundup as more effective than vinegar!”

Toxic adjuvants in the new Roundup? Or just soap?

Burtscher spent about €30 on the glyphosate-free Roundup but says in future he will just buy vinegar if it works out cheaper. It may also be safer, he adds, since “We do not know if the vinegar-based Roundup formulation still contains toxic adjuvants.”

(‘Adjuvants’ are additives present in glyphosate herbicide formulations that are designed to increase the toxicity of glyphosate to plants, for example by ‘fixing’ them to leaves and reduce wash-off in rain. But they can also increase the toxicity to animals, as in the case of tallowamine often used with glyphosate.)

But if Scotts can prove the safety of the adjuvants, Burtscher says it’s a win-win situation: “It’s a victory for Monsanto because now it has a product that doesn’t cause harm and a victory for people and the environment.”

One thing is certain: glyphosate-free Roundup is a product whose time has come.

Claire Robinson is managing editor at GMWatch, a public news and information service on issues surrounding GM crops and foods.

This article was originally published by GMWatch.

A new type of Roundup is on sale in Austrian garden centres. It’s the same old bottle with the same familiar brand name and is marketed by Scotts, under licence from Monsanto.

The only difference compared with the old-style Roundup is that the new one has a prominent label on the front saying it’s formulated “without glyphosate” (“ohne Glyphosat” in German).

On the back, on the ingredients label, the ‘active substance’ is defined as none other than vinegar: ‘Essigsäure’.

The new product was bought by Dr Helmut Burtscher, a biochemist who works for the Vienna-based NGO GLOBAL 2000, (the Austrian affiliate to Friends of the Earth International) in a garden centre in Vienna.

He learned of the glyphosate-free Roundup in a brochure sent to his house advertising new products. His reaction? “I laughed – but then I went quickly to the store to see if it was really true or a joke. It was real.”

In fact, organic and other gardeners have long been using vinegar as a weedkiller, which works by sucking moisture out of plants’ leaves. It’s most effective if used in dry weather when plants are already water-stressed, and the vinegar won’t get washed off or diluted by rain.

Most recipes also advise adding soap or washing up liquid to help it spread over leaves.

What’s Monsanto’s rationale here?

Why does Burtscher think that Scotts brought out this product? “The World Health Organisations’ cancer agency IARC has stated that glyphosate was a probable human carcinogen. Monsanto has admitted in court that it cannot claim that Roundup doesn’t cause cancer because the complete formulation has never been tested.

“Garden centres are wondering what they can tell their customers. They have undoubtedly lost business. Some have phased out all chemical pesticides, such as Bellaflora, which took this step in cooperation with GLOBAL 2000 long before IARC came out with its verdict.”

Burtscher says that in the case of Bellaflora, the NGO didn’t need to apply much pressure: “The expertise came from the company. Now they only sell organic-approved plant protection products.”

But why does Burtscher think Scotts are calling its new vinegar-based herbicide Roundup? “Maybe Scotts thought: We need this trade name because people see Roundup as more effective than vinegar!”

Toxic adjuvants in the new Roundup? Or just soap?

Burtscher spent about €30 on the glyphosate-free Roundup but says in future he will just buy vinegar if it works out cheaper. It may also be safer, he adds, since “We do not know if the vinegar-based Roundup formulation still contains toxic adjuvants.”

(‘Adjuvants’ are additives present in glyphosate herbicide formulations that are designed to increase the toxicity of glyphosate to plants, for example by ‘fixing’ them to leaves and reduce wash-off in rain. But they can also increase the toxicity to animals, as in the case of tallowamine often used with glyphosate.)

But if Scotts can prove the safety of the adjuvants, Burtscher says it’s a win-win situation: “It’s a victory for Monsanto because now it has a product that doesn’t cause harm and a victory for people and the environment.”

One thing is certain: glyphosate-free Roundup is a product whose time has come.

Claire Robinson is managing editor at GMWatch, a public news and information service on issues surrounding GM crops and foods.

This article was originally published by GMWatch.