On daily basis, strains of bullock carts with specifically rubberised wheels cross the creek between Kihim and Awas seashores in Alibag, the place many Mumbaikars now reside and work, to mine huge portions of sand unchecked.
Picture: Sumaira Abdulali

In 1973, virtually 20 years earlier than the Coastal Regulation Zone was first notified in 1992 and 30 years earlier than I encountered the sand mafia on Kihim Seashore, in Maharashtra, in 2004, it was not possible for Gaura Devi and the ladies of Raini, Uttarakhand, to think about that sand mining would wash away their village within the Garhwal Himalayas. Even much less possible that their Chipko Motion to save lots of bushes would encourage a motion to save lots of sand on the Konkan coast of Maharashtra. But, once I felt the burden of sand press down on me, buried within the sand to protest its destruction in an consciousness marketing campaign ‘Don’t Bury the Concern of Sand Mining’ I drew inspiration from Gaura Devi and different ladies of Reini. 

In 1973, Gaura Devi hugged her bushes as a result of she beloved them. She hugged them as a result of their lives have been intimately related, she needed to save lots of them from logging. Above, holy Badrinath, Kedarnath and the Valley of Flowers are within the tallest mountain vary of the world. Underfoot, historic sand scattered with shells from the traditional seabed of the Neotethys Ocean, which arose to kind the Himalayas within the conflict of two continents—India and Eurasia—50 million years in the past.

As the ladies of Raini, who could by no means see or think about a sea-coast, are intimately related with seashells, we who reside by the ocean are intimately related with Himalayan glaciers that circulation to the coasts, grinding rocks alongside the best way, bringing water and sand with them. “Completely different types of environmental change are intertwined,” says ‘Making Peace with Nature’ the United Nations’ blueprint on the Local weather Emergency, launched in 2021. “Earth’s environmental emergencies should be addressed collectively to attain sustainability.”

In 2003, I first turned conscious of sand mining as a critical environmental menace once I noticed sand hauled away from Kihim Seashore. Big craters changed tender white sand I had walked on my entire life; for me this seaside I beloved, with out sand, was unthinkable.

In 2012, the Ladies Human Rights Defenders Worldwide Coalition Report (WHRDICR) carried the 2 assaults on me by Alibag’s rising sand mafia (at Kihim in 2004 and Mahad in 2010) as a case examine to reveal the hyperlinks between ladies and sand mining. The WHRDICR stated, “As is typical in rural India, ladies don’t have any voice within the male-dominated sand mining enterprise that affects their houses and villages—except activists intervene; and lots of activists taking over these points in India are ladies.”

Cement-concrete utilizing sand is our modern-day go-to for development. Trendy cement-concrete constructing requires sand, stone, floor naturally or by way of an industrial course of, into irregular particles, to provide energy to our civilisation’s constructed infrastructure. The excessive demand and simple availability of sand and stone make them the second most extracted supplies on the earth, after water.

Seashore sand mining was unlawful since 1991 when the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Guidelines have been first notified 31 years in the past. Sand mining occurred nonetheless, surreptitiously. As an alternative of cracking down, the Ministry of Surroundings, Forests and Local weather Change seeks to legalise seaside sand mining and speed up the existential menace to our most stunning Indian seashores.  Is India sacrificing long-term pursuits for short-term good points?

On daily basis, strains of bullock carts with specifically rubberised wheels cross the creek between Kihim and Awas seashores in Alibag, the place many Mumbaikars now reside and work, to mine huge portions of sand, unchecked. Though coconut bushes have fallen throughout the eroded seaside and excessive tide sprays salt-water 10 toes excessive, complaints don’t lead to any critical motion.

Kihim seaside.
Picture: Sumaira Abdulali

In 2017, investigative journalist Sandhya Ravishankar uncovered unlawful sand mining on seashores close to Chennai in Tamil Nadu. She stated, “The journey of uncovering unlawful seaside sand mining has been bitter, although additionally full of victories large and small, it has damaged previous relationships and constructed new ones. Maybe it’s, in impact, a microcosm of a turbulent life.”

Indian cities like Mumbai and Chennai already face threats of drowning by 2050 due to sea-level rise. Sand mining will take away pure limitations, hasten the method and speed up this menace. It should worsen the results of local weather change; speed up the destruction of coastal fishing livelihoods; destroy farmlands, adversely have an effect on ground-water tables by way of saline ingress; destroy vacation and leisure services; influence biodiverse habitats of marine, terrestrial and fowl life.

Advocate Ishwar Nankani, who filed public curiosity litigation (PIL) towards unlawful sand mining professional bono for Awaaz Basis in 2006, says, “Within the final a number of years, sand and stone quarrying was chargeable for landslides in Kerala and Maharashtra. Legalising seaside sand mining to the non-public sector will legitimise an environmentally harmful exercise.”

Sarcastically, in a closed loop of destruction, sand mining threatens the very infrastructure it’s mined to construct. In Mahad, the place I encountered the sand mafia over a decade in the past, sand dredgers have been discovered underneath a bridge that collapsed in 2016.  In Uttarakhand, a number of necessary bridges collapsed when sand was mined excessively close by in 2021.

Sand mining contributes to, and worsens, the results of local weather catastrophes too. Sand is required for constructing. After each local weather catastrophe, it is usually required for re-building, additional rising environmental and human prices. Ladies of coastal communities are disproportionately affected, based on a number of stories of the United Nations, as a result of ladies face an elevated burden of family duties.

In Uttarakhand, the place sand mining was straight chargeable for the flooding of the Ganga and large lack of property and lives, an investigative report for The Third Pole by Monika Mondal says, “The Centre’s sand mining framework stories that income from the sale of sand in Uttarakhand was Rs 1.735 billion (about $23 million) within the monetary 12 months 2014-15, and practically doubled to Rs 3.353 billion in 2016-17, the newest 12 months for which figures can be found.”

“Sand is free, it’s mendacity round, and anybody can plunder it. This makes sand mining a troublesome concern to regulate.” says senior counsel Chander Uday Singh, who appeared professional bono with Ishwar Nankani within the first PIL towards sand mining in 2006 within the Bombay Excessive Court docket. He goes on to say, “Main rivers, together with the Ganga, Yamuna, Godavari and Kaveri are being plundered unchecked already. Excessive demand and simple availability of sand for development is a reason for large environmental degradation and human rights violations, extra recognized now than they have been when Sumaira was first attacked by the sand mafia on Kihim Seashore in 2004 and 2010.”  

Pure disasters like floods and landslides are “placing a pressure on the state’s financial system,” stated Chief Minister of Maharashtra Uddhav Thackeray, in October 2021. Ironic that sand, extracted recklessly to construct the infrastructure for financial development, is itself putting the financial system in danger.

Within the absence of official figures, the actual worth of sand extracted for development can solely be estimated as a proportion of India’s constructing plans. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has introduced $1.3 trillion investments in the direction of constructing cement-concrete infrastructure within the Pradhan Mantri Gati Shakti Grasp Plan. This infrastructure can’t be constructed with out sand or a sand-substitute. The corresponding value of sand makes it our single largest commodity.

Awaaz Basis protests towards unlawful sand mining.
Picture: Awaaz Basis

The federal government is our largest builder of infrastructure. However, it has by no means carried out a full audit of sand availability or matched it with the necessities for our formidable improvement plans. There have been no research on the financial worth of the sand that shall be wanted for development and in any other case. Whereas sand continues to be stolen from our rivers and seashores, sand mining has been legalised to satisfy elevated demand.

CoP26, the essential local weather change convention at Glasgow, targeting phasing out coal and curbing deforestation to chop emissions and forestall probably the most devastating impacts of local weather change by 2050. Nonetheless, CoP26 didn’t take into account sand mining or emissions from cement-concrete development.

India is hastening to meet up with the failed improvement fashions of ‘developed international locations.’ These fashions are extremely polluting and have led to the Earth’s local weather disaster, probably the most critical existential menace going through people at present. Right this moment, we higher perceive the very actual prices of such polluting fashions of improvement. But, we select additional catastrophe when we don’t issue environmental, monetary or human prices of local weather change adequately into our development fashions.

The sand mafia has murdered, unintentionally killed or attacked tons of of individuals together with activists, journalists, authorities officers, police, even members of the elected Meeting. Of the 193 folks killed due to sand mining between January 2019 and November 2020, 80 p.c of the 95 who drowned have been youngsters as a result of they have been unaware of sandpits underwater.  

“There is no such thing as a credible evaluation, neither surroundings evaluation nor social evaluation, of river sand mining in India, which may solely be credible if there’s an impartial evaluation. In absence of that, we’re transferring in darkness. We don’t even perceive what the implications of river sand mining are,” says Himanshu Thakkar of South Asia Community on Dams, Rivers & Folks (SANDRP), who has studied India’s rivers for 3 many years.

Monika Yadav of Uttar Pradesh understands these implications first-hand. “When sand was forcibly faraway from our household’s fields, I had hassle feeding my youngsters. I’ve to stroll additional to fetch water day-after-day. My husband [Brijmohan Yadav] protested. Then he was attacked and now we’re scared in our own residence. Our entire household is struggling.”

A fact-sheet on the web site of the United Nations says, “Ladies and ladies bear the burden of fetching water for his or her households and spend important quantities of time every day hauling water from distant sources… given the altering local weather, insufficient entry to water and poor water high quality doesn’t solely have an effect on ladies, their duties as major givers, and the well being of their households… will increase the over-all quantity of labour that’s expended to gather, retailer, defend and distribute water.”

Indian ladies undergo disproportionately from the results of local weather change. They’re pressured to stroll additional to fetch water, to care for youngsters and the aged by way of climate-related floods and droughts. But, like their youngsters who will inherit the world of local weather disaster we depart behind, they’ve the least say in controlling local weather.

An merchandise on the Provisional Agenda of CoP 26 ‘Gender and Local weather Change’ confirmed the significance of girls in planning. Choice 9/CP.24, “Urges Events and non-Get together stakeholders to mainstream gender concerns in all phases of their adaptation planning processes, together with nationwide adaptation plans and the implementation of adaptation motion, making an allowance for out there steerage.”

However, “Ladies are sometimes not noted of high-level coverage discussions and are unable to totally take part regardless of their experience,” says Elsa Marie D’Silva, founding father of Crimson Dot Basis and creator of She Is, which options 33 Indian ladies engaged on the United Nations Sustainable Improvement Objectives. “Having functionality and alternative, we now want intention and funding.”

Late Shabnam Siddiqui, government director, UN International Compact Community India, concurred: “Solely the whole participation of girls, who actually maintain half the sky, will guarantee… SDGs and their targets have an actual likelihood of accomplishment.”

Josy Paul, chief artistic officer of BBDO India, who designed the marketing campaign ‘Don’t Bury the Concern of Sand Mining’ for Awaaz Basis, says, “Sand mining is an ‘out of sight, out of thoughts’ concern, although it impacts all of us, whether or not we all know it or not. The problem is to carry sand mining into the general public consciousness as a mainstream environmental menace, which straight impacts city and rural folks, women and men, of their day-to-day lives.”

Their conventional roles as carers additionally make sure that ladies lead in caring for the surroundings. The UN burdened the impacts and function of gender, calling for “delicate planning”.  Professor Suzanne Simard of the College of British Columbia describes heritage bushes as “mom bushes” that “ship messages of knowledge on to the subsequent era of seedlings”.

Chipko motion.
Picture: Bhawan Singh/The India Right this moment Group through Getty Photographs

In 2021, 48 years after his grandmother Gaura Devi impressed environmental actions the world over when she hugged and guarded the bushes she beloved, her grandson Sohan Singh filed a petition to guard his village of Raini in Uttarakhand after two devastating floods.

In 1973, the ladies of Raini couldn’t know the a number of challenges their forest would face or how their demonstration of affection for his or her bushes would encourage a number of environmental actions to guard a redwood forest in California, an Andean cloud forest in Ecuador. They may not think about their motion resonating many years later when a glacier burst in Nanda Devi and floods destroyed Raini itself.

On Ladies’s Day, we have a good time ladies: We have a good time the ladies of Raini and their Chipko Motion. Their inspiration lasts.

The author is convenor, Awaaz Basis.