Singapore accused of sand smuggling

13 September, 2010
RT

Singapore, one of the world's most prosperous and fastest growing economies, is being accused of expanding its coastline with illegally dredged sand from neighboring states.

Propeller Singapore has been importing sand for years and its territory has increased by over 20% in the last half century, but sand imports are now threatening the regional ecosystem and harming its economy.

Singapore is one of the smallest 20 nations in the world and it is growing fast in every way, too.

A key global shipping hub, its vast port complexes have been relentlessly expanding in the sea due to land reclamation.

Professor Chou Loke Ming from the Biological Science Center of the National Institute of Singapore says, “We have been taking sand from our hills and then, when there are no more hills left, we have been dredging sand from sea beds, and now most of it is been imported from neighboring countries.”

Singapore is today the world's largest importer of sand, literally the foundation of the tiny state's extraordinary economic growth.

CAMBODIA: Sand dredging prompts fishermen’s protests

Fishermen report a drop in the number of fish in the area (Photo: Brendan Brady/IRIN)
Dredgers remove 25,000 metric tonnes of Cambodian sand each day (Photo: Brendan Brady/IRIN)

KOH KONG, 15 July 2010 (IRIN) - Fish are the primary source of income for residents of this sleepy, rustic border town in southwestern Cambodia, but when the area’s sand dredging vessels prowl the waters to plough up the riverbed, the fish all but disappear.

“When they were dredging a lot, we stopped bothering to even go out since it was not possible to catch anything,” Dol Sareem, a 60-year-old fisherman, told IRIN. “In those months, we caught half as much fish.”

Prime Minister Hun Sen banned sand exports in May 2009, yet sand mining continues in Koh Kong Province - the epicentre of the country’s corrupt dredging industry - enriching local elites and leaving fishermen to suffer, said international watchdog Global Witness.

There has been a lull in the sand operations since April, but local fishermen including Dol Sareem, who lives in Koh Kong’s main fishing community of dilapidated wooden homes with corrugated tin roofs, became so distressed by the impact of sand dredging that they joined several hundred people to protest in front of the provincial government office last December.

“It has improved since they have not been dredging these last few months but it’s still not like before,” he said.

Fishermen operating along the nearby River Kampot were less restrained in expressing their frustration. In February, they destroyed dredging equipment which they believed was responsible for the collapse of a riverbank.

Law not enforced

Dredging extracts sand below the sea floor, disturbing marine life and, more significantly, the spawning grounds that replenish it.

Dredgers remove 25,000 tons of sand each day from the Cambodian seas to export primarily to Singapore, where it is used for land reclamation, according to a Global Witness report in May.

The group valued a year’s worth of Cambodian sand at US$250 million on the Singapore market.

The report, entitled Shifting Sands, said the industry lacks transparency and government regulation, and could severely damage marine ecosytems essential to the livelihoods of many fishing communities.

“Companies operating in the sand sector as well as Cambodia’s regulatory agencies are ignoring environmental and social safeguards, and international industry best practices,” the report said.

The Cambodian government rejects the report’s findings. Cambodia’s embassy in London released a statement calling Global Witness an “international troublemaker” and describing its report as “malicious and misleading”.

The response by government officials closer to the ground, however, has been contradictory.

Pech Siyon, Koh Kong’s director of the Department of Industry, Energy and Mines, told local media he expected the main dredging company, LYP - named after Ly Yong Phat, the senator with the ruling party who is identified by Global Witness as the leading figure in the industry - would resume export operations in the near future.

Cambodia targeted

Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam have placed restrictions on sand exports because of the environmental destruction it causes.

As a result, Global Witness says, Singapore has turned to Cambodia, where laws are lax.

According to Chourn Bunnara, who is based on the Cambodian coast with the NGO Fisheries Action Coalition Team, fishing communities have been largely powerless to raise concerns with the government about dredging vessels violating the ban.

Sand dredgers back in Koh Kong [-Global Witness report was right on the money!]

A barge laden with sand plies the Koh Pao River upstream from Koh Kong town last November. Dredging operations have allegedly increased in the province after a downturn last year. (Photo by: Matt Jacobson)

Wednesday, 09 June 2010
Vong Sokheng
The Phnom Penh Post

Ships have reportedly bolstered operations in area, and there are also concerns on the Mekong

SAND-DREDGERS have resumed large-scale operations in Koh Kong province’s salt-water estuaries since June 2 after a drop-off in dredging activities as a result of a sand-export ban last year, local fishermen said Tuesday.

Matt Sen, a 47-year-old fisherman from Village 4 in Smach Meanchey district’s Dong Tung commune, said Tuesday that about 10 transport ships are now waiting in the ocean to transport sand offshore.

He added that fishermen were using around 8 litres of gasoline per day in order to access deepwater areas where the fish are still plentiful, and blamed the dredgers for fish declines in shallow areas.

“I don’t know about the environmental impact. I only know that when there are sand-dredging companies in the sea there are no fish,” he said.

Last month, London-based watchdog Global Witness released a report on Cambodia’s sand trade that said that up to 796,000 tonnes of sand was being removed from Koh Kong each month.

The group estimates that the annual value of these shipments is US$28.7 million in Cambodia and $248 million once the sand reaches Singapore, and that the trade is being conducted with little regard for international standards or local laws.

Last month, fishermen and local officials told the Post that dredging – including one large-scale operation run jointly by Hong Kong’s Winton Enterprises and the local LYP Group – had stopped in the area following the sand-export ban, which was announced by Prime Minister Hun Sen in May and July of last year.

Pech Siyon, director of the Koh Kong provincial Department of Industry, Mines and Energy, also said last month that only one company, Udom Seima Trading, was dredging in the area. He added that the LYP/Winton operation had shut down pending the renewal of its sand-export licence.

When contacted Tuesday, he denied the fishermen’s claims that dredging had increased, saying the situation remained unchanged.

“I have no information about whether the company will have its licence for export renewed or not, but the sand-dredging companies are still operating as normal,” he said.

Fresh dredging concerns have also been raised by villagers living along the Mekong River in Kandal province’s Khsach Kandal district.

On Sunday, around 200 villagers from Chong Koh village protested against operations that they say are eroding riverbanks and threatening farmland.

Khsach Kandal Governor Kong Sophon said an unnamed sand company had received a dredging licence from the government, but that some of its operations had been undertaken in areas where dredging was not permitted

“Our local authorities, village representatives and the company will meet tomorrow to resolve the complaints filed by the villagers,” he said.

Report: Cambodia destroying coastal ecology by sand exports to Singapore

Tuesday, May 11, 2010
By Denis D. Gray (CP)

BANGKOK — Cambodia is devastating its coast by dredging vast quantities of sand to sell to tiny Singapore for expansion projects, with multimillion-dollar profits going to tycoons close to the Cambodian prime minister, a watchdog group said Tuesday.

Impoverished Cambodia has become the new prime source of the masses of sand used for projects to artificially enlarge Singapore's island territory now that several other Southeast Asian nations — including Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam — have banned sand exports because of environmental concerns.

Singapore has increased its surface area by 20 per cent in recent decades by filling in coastal seabeds to create new, valuable waterfront ground, a process known as "land reclamation."

London-based environmental watchdog Global Witness criticized Singapore for the practice, pointing out that the wealthy island city-state at the same time "presents itself as a regional leader on environmental issues."

"The country's failure to mitigate the social and ecological cost of sand dredging represents hypocrisy on a grand scale," Global Witness said in a report released Tuesday.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen last year announced a blanket ban on sand exports following local protests, but the Global Witness investigation said the country continues to supply Singapore with tens of thousands of tons of sand dredged up from rivers and estuaries along the fragile coastline.

Operations from just one Cambodian province were estimated to be worth $248 million annually in retail value in Singapore, the group said.

Cambodia's law on sand actually banned only river sand from export, but Global Witness said its investigators found that both river and sea sand have been exported since the law was passed.

Global Witness said the government has been "failing to ensure compliance with Cambodia's other environmental and socio-economic legal framework," though a Cambodian government spokesman said that dredging is confined to areas where the environment would not be degraded.

Singapore's National Development Ministry said sand import is carried out by private enterprises, which must by law "not breach any of the source countries' environment rules and other relevant laws."

The Cambodian sand trade, Global Witness said, is monopolized by two senators with close ties to Hun Sen "with no evidence of any revenues (from the exports) reaching Cambodia's state coffers."

One of the senators, Mong Rethy, refused to comment when reached by telephone, while the other, Ly Yong Phat, could not be reached despite several attempts.

Global Witness has over the past decade published several reports chronicling the stranglehold of what it calls Cambodia's "kleptocratic elite" on the country's forests, minerals and other natural resources through corruption and cronyism, often accompanied by abuses of human rights.

The government has denied such charges, but Cambodia's international donors, including the United States and the European Union, have levelled similar criticism.

Global Witness' latest report said Cambodia's sand-dredging industry "poses a huge risk to its coastal environment, threatening endangered species, fish stocks and local livelihoods. There is no evidence that basic environmental safeguards have been applied."

It said that concessions had been allocated inside protected areas and that on one day alone, nine dredging vessels were spotted inside such a zone. Extraction has actually increased since last year, it said.

The report quotes a government website as estimating that up to 60,000 tons of sand are mined each month from the water of Koh Kong province in the country's southwest.

Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said a total ban was in place on sand dredging near islands and eco-tourism areas, deep water regions and in zones with large number of fish stocks.

However, he said some dredging is permitted to serve local demand and allow passage of ships in silted-over areas. Surplus sand could be exported, he said.

Singapore's government denied any wrongdoing and disputed the Global Witness report's allegations.

"The report suggests that the Singapore government seeks to import sand without due regard to the law or environmental impact of the source country. This is not true," a statement from National Development Ministry said.
___
Associated Press writer Sopheng Cheang in Phnom Penh and Alex Kennedy in Singapore contributed to this report.

Sand exports to Singapore harm Cambodia: watchdog

Hun Xen's cronies: Mong Reththy (L) and Ly Yong Phat (R)

Tuesday, May 11, 2010
AFP

PHNOM PENH — Cambodia is engaged in destructive sand exports to fuel Singapore's rapid expansion despite a supposed government ban on the practice, an environmental watchdog said Tuesday.

London-based Global Witness said Cambodia was making a "mockery of the government's supposed May 2009 ban on sand-dredging", risking devastation to its coasts, endangered species, fish stocks and local livelihoods.

"There is no evidence that basic environmental safeguards have been applied, with boats reportedly turning up and dredging sand, often in protected areas, with no local consultation," said its new report, entitled "Shifting Sands".

The group, which has made many allegations of Cambodian cronyism in recent years, said Mong Reththy and Ly Yong Phat -- senators known to have close ties to premier Hun Sen -- have been covertly awarded licences to dredge sand.

"This situation highlights the continued failure of Cambodia's international donors to use their leverage to hold the small elite surrounding the prime minister to account," said George Boden, campaigner at Global Witness.

The report said investigators tracked sand-filled boats from Cambodia to Singapore, estimating concessions from southwestern Koh Kong province alone netted 20 million dollars per month for some 796,000 tonnes of sand.

Global Witness added that figures from other concessions along Cambodia's coast were not known, and there was no way to track whether revenues from sand exports reached the national treasury.

"In addition, Global Witness has seen Cambodian sand dredging and export licences which bear the stamp and signature of a representative of the Singapore Embassy in Cambodia," the report said.

Singapore has expanded its surface area by 22 percent since the 1960s, said the report, requiring vast quantities of imported sand from neighbours in Southeast Asia.

Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam have halted sand exports to the city-state over concerns the practice depleted fish stocks and caused erosion.

The Cambodian government has banned past reports by Global Witness, which also accused donors of ignoring graft among elites who have allegedly been involved in illegal logging as well as shady oil and mining deals.

Singapore plans to buy sand from Cambodia

Saturday, April 28, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Singapore is planning to buy sand from Cambodia for all its construction needs, Sun Chanthol, the Minister of Public Work and Transportation, said on 24 April, during a conference held at his ministry, that there are currently a number of countries that want to buy sand from Cambodia, in particular Singapore which needs a lot of sands for its construction needs. Sun Chanthol quoted Prime Minister Hun Sen who requested the Ministry of Public Work to study and to agree on the sale of river sands to Singapore. Chan Yutha, a government official from the Department of Water Resources, said that he is aware of Singapore’s desire to buy sands from Cambodia, but that Cambodia is still evaluating this issue because the department does not know yet what kind of sands Singapore need. Sun Chanthol said that in the past, Singapore used to buy sand from Indonesia, however, because of political problems between the two countries, the sand purchase was canceled. Furthermore, sands from Vietnam does not meet the quality requirements that Singapore need.