Sebastian Strangio and Vong Sokheng Phnom Penh Post 12 May 10;
SINGAPORE has rejected the findings of a new report contending that its sand export trade with Cambodia is taking place without regard for “devastating” environmental and social impacts.
The report, released Monday by international graft watchdog Global Witness, claims sand exports have spiked despite a ban on exports announced by Prime Minister Hun Sen last year. It also says Singapore has done little to ensure that its sand suppliers abide by international environmental standards.
In a statement issued Monday, Singapore’s Ministry of National Development (MND) dismissed the allegations in the report.
“This is not true. We are committed to the protection of the global environment, and we do not condone the illegal export or smuggling of sand, or any extraction of sand that is in breach of the source countries’ laws and rules on environmental protection,” the statement said. “We have not received any official notice on the ban of sand exports from Cambodia,” it added.
The Global Witness report estimates that as much as 796,000 tonnes of sand is being removed each month from Koh Kong province, the epicentre of a sand trade worth an estimated $248 million annually in Singapore.
The group says the city-state’s appetite for sand, which is used in reclamation projects, is fuelling a “corrupt and environmentally disastrous” sand industry that has damaged Cambodian fish stocks and threatens long-term damage to its riverine and marine ecosystems.
Singapore’s MND, however, said that Jurong Town Corporation (JTC), an agency under the Ministry of Trade and Industry that procures sand for government projects, requires its Singaporean suppliers to “comply with local legal procedures” in sourcing sand.
Contracts drawn up by JTC, it stated, include clauses obliging suppliers and their local partners to act in accordance with the “laws, rules, regulations and policies” of host countries and to dredge without causing “adverse” environmental impacts.
“JTC regularly sends out firm reminders to the sand vendors to observe the regulations and requirements of the source countries, especially those pertaining to environmental concerns,” the statement added. It warned that offending companies would be held to account under Singaporean law.
But Global Witness questioned the extent to which Singapore had taken steps to ensure the transparency of its trade with Cambodia, given Singapore’s apparent awareness of its effects elsewhere in the region.
“Singapore’s demand for sand has already had a negative impact in other countries in the region – which have subsequently banned exports due to environmental concerns,” the group said in an emailed statement to the Post on Tuesday, calling for more to be done to ensure transparency.
“Global Witness is calling upon Singapore to do the right thing by suspending all imports of sand from Cambodia until the concerns raised in [its report] are addressed,” it said.
The statement also said it was “strange” that Singaporean officials were not informed of Cambodia’s sand ban, since the city-state was the primary market for Cambodian sand. It also pointed out that a government agency – the Building and Construction Authority – made a statement to the press after the ban was announced.
When contacted Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said he could not comment on whether news of the ban was relayed to Singapore.
Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said the government did not notify Singapore about the ban, because “legal companies are still continuing sand exports”. “We banned only the illegal sand-dredging companies,” he said.
Mao Hak, director general of the Department of Hydrology and River Works at the Ministry of Water Resources, said a ban is still in place, but that certain coastal areas are exempt.
“Sand was completely banned for export, but we excepted some areas in the ocean that do not cause impacts to the environment and where mineral resources” could be replenished, he said.
The damage caused by Singapore's insatiable thirst for land
Tom Levitt, The Ecologist 11 May 10;
While logging and deforestation has gained global attention the growing sand mining sector is being largely ignored. Fuelled by Singapore’s land and construction demands it is wreaking environmental destruction across south-east Asia
The fast growing market for sand in south-east Asia, particularly from Singapore, is being linked to widespread damage to coastal ecosystems and fish stocks.
The densely populated state of Singapore has expanded in size by more than 20 per cent since the 1960s by reclaiming vast amounts of land from the sea, in doing so becoming the world’s biggest importer of sand – 14.2 million tonnes in 2008.
Most of its exports have come from neighbouring Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam but all three have now attempted to limit or ban exports of sand. With plans to expand its surface area by a further 7 per cent by 2020, Singapore is becoming increasingly reliant on another one of its neighbours, Cambodia, to meet its demand.
Although Cambodia publicly maintains that it has banned sand exports, an investigation by the NGO Global Witness has estimated that 796,000 tonnes of sand with a retail value of US$248 million are still being extracted and exported to Singapore every year from just one province, Koh Kong.
Ecological damage
The extraction is coming at a significant environmental cost. Dredging reduces water quality by increasing turbidity, blocking sunlight and killing off plant life, including seagrass and coral. Sand extraction also disrupts natural sedimentary regimes causing increased erosion and greater flood risks. There have also been reports of significant declines in fish stocks.
Campaigners are now worried that the rapid rise in sand mining activity in Cambodia could see the Koh Kong province in particular meet the same fate as Indonesia’s Riau Islands. Over-extraction there led to significant damage to coral reefs and entire islands disappearing, forcing the authorities to ban sand exports back in 2007.
Cambodia’s Prime Minister, Hun Sen, did announce a ban on sand exports last year but Global Witness later found this only covered river sand and not seabed sand. It claims the sector is rife with corruption and largely controlled by individuals close to the ruling elite in the country.
Sand dredging licences, Global Witness maintains, are being allocated inside protected mangrove and seagrass habitats. Local newspapers have also reported villagers being attacked and killed during forced evictions from areas of increased sand extraction.
‘Ultimately the people who are reliant most on the natural resources will lose out: fishermen who are being evicted or seeing their stocks plummet from sand dredging boats coming through their catch area; and indigenous people,’ said Global Witness campaigner George Boden.
Corruption
Having already logged much of the country’s forest resources, Global Witness accuse Cambodia’s elite, in collusion with mining companies, of switching their attention to sand.
The report says there is little evidence that any of the financial benefit from the booming sand mining trade is benefiting the country as a whole.
‘Millions of dollars are changing hands, but there is no way of tracking whether royalties, taxes and other revenues generated are reaching the national treasury…as usual, it is Cambodia’s poor who have borne the brunt of this elite capture, with loss of their livelihoods and coastal environments,’ the report says.
While the problem is being felt most critically in Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia, Global Witness says the majority of the blame lies with Singapore, which it accuses of ignoring concerns about the environmental impact of its sand imports as it gives the go-ahead to new racing tracks, casinos and port developments requiring yet more sand.
In response to the NGOs findings, the Singapore Government said the import of sand to Singapore was done on a commercial basis and that they were ‘not party to any agreement or contract for the import of sand’.
However, Global Witness says it has evidence that government ministries were involved in buying sand, allegedly from Cambodia.
Illegal trade
In fact the industry has become so lucrative that as neighbouring countries implement bans to safeguard their ecosystems, there has been a growing market from Singapore for smuggled sand.
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