is an astonishing example of this appetite within a few decades this fishing village has morphed into a mecca of modern architecture is a sandbox for developers were no fantasies too grandiose. but as projects. of sand using huge volumes of sand and construction projects concrete and indeed just making more land as has been doing with the with the artificially constructed islands. landfills or even bigger consumers of sand the concrete. with a booming economy the emirate launched in business expansion project. after the year two thousand with the price of real estate soaring as a result of speculation developers bet that it would be cheaper to make land than

to buy it. the self-proclaimed eighth wonder of the world cost over twelve billion dollars and about more than one hundred fifty million tons of sand dredged from the coastline. with the giant palm still under construction flying high in the seemingly endless supply of money and sand embarked on an even more extravagant project the world. the world is an island paradise would run for president had opportunity can be found that this artificial archipelago of three hundred islands designed as a map of the world absorbed fourteen billion dollars and three times as much sand as the. place that your nation. today the world is a mirage the work site has been abandoned since the. set of the financial crisis in

two thousand and eight. deserted island is now parked in the sun awaiting the uncertain day when millionaire buyers will again descend on to buy and restore its glory. to kill the corporation managing the palm in the world the crisis is more than financial overdevelopment is totally liquidated by his natural sand resources and you think well fine of course dubai is on the edge of that there's a they've got older family neat like all the gulf states dubai has sand everywhere so why doesn't the emirates simply help itself to the desert. desert sand is the wrong color end of sand for building a lot of fishel islands why because deserts and all the grains have been blown around by the wind is typically very round and very smooth if you want to use it to build an island they don't stick together you need sand that that is more angular rougher rougher age say that naturally sticks together. see sand is perfect for

island building and construction but it's in limited supply sand is not a sustainable resource. although its own stocks are exhausted dubai is far from given up. the burj khalifa at the time of construction the world's tallest building was built with sand from half a world away. we have a saying in english this is selling sand to the arabs which is obviously a joke. that that's actually come true in the case of the by. thirty five hundred australian companies exports into the arabian peninsula their profits have tripled in twenty years accounting for a five billion dollar jackpot. and australia is just one small part of a global trend that reliant on importing sand from other areas and so what you see

is this huge trade around the world moving from one another for different purposes construction of land reclamation. singapore is another city at the heart of the sand wars. and thirty years the country known as the switzerland of asia has become one of the richest in the region during this time the population has more than doubled and the sixty three islands that make up the city state are bursting at the seams singapore is sort of lying on the import. saddened for its very existence and the land masses literally increased twenty percent over the last forty is and that's largely been reckon nation so literally pouring sound into the sea to create new land. singapore is already transformed one hundred thirty square kilometers of water into land and is planning to add another one hundred square kilometers by twenty thirty. having devoured all its own reserves its for ratios

appetite is targeted at its neighbor supplies. one after another cambodia. malaysia and indonesia have each decided to ban trade with singapore but its addiction to sand is not easy to restrain. singapore is being accused of expanding its coast and illegally dredged satins from neighboring states. suspicions of sand trafficking hang over singapore and the dozens of barges filled to the brim which imo daily and it's important prove that the city state has found an alternative source but where does the saying come from. tommy guns fear. guns. then you're going to hear very every day every week.

this what is driving the visuals so. i'm going to. sit in. your individual. little. north korean television or go back to you or your nice example. thanks to local traffic and networks singapore and dealers with false identities working for fictional companies continue to find supplies of sand in neighboring countries. but the other one. but in the same system. which i think is it just it was the business of the state but this is this case. the law with the tacit support of the government for most loyal client. the son trade in singapore is that he usually have a political as a massive a backcross is ours were concerned it's just a is build

a. leader in the region particularly with the last global sun that but their companies will brain imports of that country and should be its human rights violations environmental degradation and damage the livelihoods of local people. the effects of underwater dredging are far from but. much of the ocean floors rocky are covered with only a thin layer of sand. built up over tens or even hundreds of thousands of years. as you dredge up a set. of course all the the any walls and plans on the sea floor they will all be dredged up as well and therefore whatever live in communities that they will just be the. sand is the primary link in the underwater food chain remove it and

the survival of all species from the smallest to the largest just threatened. like many archipelagos many of indonesia's islands are literally made of sand and intense dredging has triggered a series of chain reactions. ninety two percent in the nation's fiscal challenges come from tension of the city because. this when this coral reef we lost fish. livelihood. everything loss of fish habitat directly endangers the survival of thousands of indonesian families but that's only the first of sand dredging to adverse effects. if you have an oil made of sand it's only there because of conspiracy of natural processes wind waves water currents time of year and so if you start removing that. then you've upset

the balance of the conspiracy and waves and currents will learn start to move the rest of the sail. after the extraction of sand a combination of waves currents and gravity slowly fill in the back you. so the removal of underwater sand can have a very noticeable effect on nearby beaches and islands. and so by a combination of natural growth this is and human excavation the island can literally disappear. one of the nice stunning and pax of the trade was the disappearance of some of the islands off the coast of indonesia and what should have literally vanished. when we use that sand. that we loose. our life. once an island disappears the international maritime boundary changes all is required to these become

geopolitical issues as well as simply commercial and resource issues. twenty five indonesian islands have already disappeared. like coal and gas sand is now on the frontline of the world's hunger for raw materials. scarcity and dangers local communities and sets governments against each other. as demand builds the circle only becomes more vicious. morocco's gentle climate has been welcoming tourists for years. but its famous beaches have also been attracting some strange four legged visitors a constant stream of men and doggies descend on the beaches seven days a week. in search of. sand.

the men in the donkeys have taken so much sand that some beaches now look like the surface of the moon. rock has been experiencing a construction boom spurred on by a competitive real estate market. the builders are happy but they need plenty of sand legal and otherwise. that. i wrote that i wrote that i have i don't want to give you. are you know that i'm not going to bend an addendum going to match what do you have enough to know what kind of what do you know did not know my love my double got nothing. but i'm not going to help oh yeah. look i do one thing yes i did was really i do what you guys really do with their day but didn't come at you that you're not going out your head

not them have them come we didn't know it but i'm not good at going to create a video i like them i like that lap it's estimated that forty to forty five percent of the sand used in construction in morocco has been stolen mostly from its beaches . loaded onto trucks the sand is sold directly to unscrupulous developers but that's not where the problem ends. without proper treatment salty beach sand mixed with cement is highly corrosive make america's new buildings ticking time bombs in danger of collapse. ironically the beach is meant to lure the tourists are being stripped bare to build hotels and condos that may turn out to be death traps.

in mumbai a.v. enjoy. the position of being the financial capital of the country andrea also have a huge housing boom construction boom that's because of the influx of so many new people into the city. but the indian economy booming construction has to keep pace and like in so many other battlegrounds of the sand wars easy profits lead to corrupt practices. the value of sand is such that it's a commercial commodity that is smuggled i mean the it's a big business is smuggling the fam. sand mafia is the most powerful criminal organization in india. and a lot of the people. who control of the sand mafia controls

a lot of the construction the construction materials businesses in bombay as well as the constructions themselves. in addition to that they also control the administration through their political contacts so that just completes the whole value chain right from the extraction to construction the the profits in each bottle fed the administration and the police. under the eyes of corrupt authorities the sand arts ply their trade in broad daylight and more than eight thousand drugs inside scattered across the coast and river banks of the subcontinent. for the mafia's beaches are easy prey because the sand is literally within arm's reach so they had even the most popular tourist sites the places where you expect to stretch out on the beach and worship the sun.

the tentacles of the mafia's however are just adding to the pressures facing the world speeches. just two years ago there was a row of houses here. about i think about a house though from about here all the way down to the condo and those houses there on the water the shoreline with going right past them so they ended up taking them out of these houses here with their on the beach front were row number two and i the fact that these houses won't be here and five here. with both the house about two years ago hoping that we would be able to retire here. but from here you can see how much sand we've lost underneath the house. because it was up to level with the cement but of course it went out into the ocean.

so. the beach area was about the length of a football field and over the last two years the a scart mint is underneath the houses so. the erosion on this part of the beach is much quicker than we anticipated or that is deemed to normal. globally between seventy five and ninety percent of beaches are actually undergoing some sort of retreat and that's only going to get worst. territorial. and ethnic divisions. the daily reality piecing some of france's underprivileged communities. zero

world here's the first time to come from suburban resident. paris. a divided city. for most memorable moments with al-jazeera was when i was on air as hosni mubarak fell with the crowds in tahrir square to a few. years ago. if something happens anywhere in the world al-jazeera is in place we're able to cover news like no of a muse old as a show. we're able to do it properly. that is all straight. incarcerated in russia's toughest prisons stripped of their liberties. and unexpected creative opportunities. a singing contest

like no other offices a chance of redemption and hope for the talented few. tale of singers and murderous witness on al jazeera. and i'm down in jordan in doha with the top stories here on al-jazeera rescuers are trying to reach remote areas following the volcanic eruption of mt forego in guatemala at least sixty two people are known to have died but that number is expected to rise the explosion is one of the most powerful in recent years it caused thousands of residents to flee and smothered surrounding villages with. jordan's king abdullah has warned that his country is at a crossroads as protests of

a proposed tax hikes continue thousands of demonstrators return to the streets of the capital late on monday the protests forced the prime minister to quit. it's been a year since saudi arabia the u.a.e. egypt and bahrain levied a blockade on qatar claiming doha was a supporter of terrorism charges that qatar denies the qatari foreign minister told al-jazeera his country won't make any compromises. let us make it very clear that the purchase off. any military equipment is a sovereign decision which no country has. anything to do with so there is no legitimate grievance behind this letter and threatening it's violating the international law it's pirating or the international norms and. the most importantly it's violating the. charter which is the countries of the g.c.c. should not launch and the attack against each other u.s. president donald trump says he has the absolute right to pardon himself from any

charges related to alleged russian meddling in the twenty sixth election the president insists he's done nothing wrong but said appointing special counsel robert muller to head the probe is unconstitutional the white house press secretary says the north is clear. i guess the question is is the president believe the framers envisioned a system where the president can part of itself or the president could be above the law certainly the constitution very clearly lays out the law and once again the president hasn't done anything wrong and we feel very comfortable on that front. and saudi arabia has issued its first driving licenses to women ten females who already had licenses from other countries have been issued official permits the ban on women drivers is due to be lifted on june twenty fourth but the licenses were given early despite the law changed nine saudi arabia not to this both men and women who've been campaigning for the right to drive remain under arrest well those are the headlines the news continues on al-jazeera after some war stage of that so

much about how. the world is running out of sand consumed by industry in construction stolen and transported by criminal mafias around the world. behind air and water sand is the most used commodity in the world. where humans have intervened and we've built structures a wall concrete seawall a highway a hotel a parking lot the beach can't move back and we see long term beach lost. as part of the natural cycle beaches adjust the seasonal changes in summer beaches grow thicker and in winter they recede and level off to better absorb the energy of

the waves to survive the ocean salt beaches must have enough space behind them but we've built too close to the shore so with nowhere to go beaches are overcome by the waves which carry their sand out to sea. if you have an eroding beach what is the problem. not the symptom the sim symptom is the beaches eroding but what is the problem. what's causing it it's us. we are drawn to coastlines today three quarters of the largest cities in the world population are on the coast as the population growth accelerates. increasing density by twenty twenty five three quarters of the world's inhabitants will live near the ocean and those ribbons of sand which surround the continents are feeling the pressure.

water and i hope that we learn from that but now we hear. and we have to figure out how to make projects. and that's what brings tourists. in florida nine out of ten beaches are in the process of disappearing along with the future livelihood of all those who depend on this economic engine. each year of the planet's tourists head for the beach beaches feed the hotel industry as well as recreation transportation food services and a multitude of other sectors in some areas almost half the g.d.p. depends directly on beaches. letting them disappear is out of the question. so what we're trying to do is try to mitigate those problems try to lessen the impact and that's why we have to take these unnatural acts. and the beaches.

to keep their beaches viable cities that can afford to invest. in their. floor and to the beach. some people see this is a solution. which only to. it's the symptom. they've got to put up the beach and say this is beach nourishment but it's just another hole. those big machines that when they go take this there in killing everything within that sand is ground up put into a pipe crust moved and then it comes out and pumped on a beach or the life forms in that part of the beach aren't prepared to be buried alive and suffocate it it's a killing process for the sake of dollars. peter planet is a temporary remedy after

a year to the sand has been washed out to sea and the whole process must be started again from scratch nonetheless this method is highly popular to the delight of the dredging companies it's a matter of big money big big influence green it's not a pleasant thing to see you see this beautiful beach but behind it is something that's not so pleasant. in a desperate maneuver to try to trap the sand on the beaches coastal engineers are advocating the construction of dikes breakwaters and all sorts of other structures . but sand cannot be so easily tamed. the constant movement of sand is not necessarily always cooperating with the way we want the place to be it will fill up. and all it will wash away from beaches where we like tourists to come and so that balance is something that we all dramatically

changing just by building on. all by building a sea wall around the extends out from the beach we build a wall to to contain sand to keep it on our beach what do we do we stop the sand from supplying the neighbor's beach. the tragedy is that people are just not aware they're not aware that an action here is going to have a reaction somewhere else so we all have to be very careful when it comes to redeveloping the coastline we have a responsibility because we don't want these great wonderful treasures that we want to share with our children to disappear because of greed because of irresponsibility. and because of just not dam paying attention. in order to avert further catastrophe it's important to understand the source of

ninety percent of the world see sand often a long way from the beaches. for the most part it starts in iraq somewhere that breaks down it might be in a river from ice or snow or rainfall and is that grain comes out of the granite or the sandstone it gets into a small stream and then a larger river and in a normal world ultimately will work its way all the way to the shoreline. it takes thousands or even millions of years for a grain of sand to reach the sea and it's a journey full of pitfalls. in america we have been building one dam every day since the deck relation of

independence and seven hundred seventy six one a day. eighty thousand dams block the rivers of the united states and china where the demand for energy is exploding dams are popping up everywhere so that by two thousand and twenty not a single waterway will reach the sea. and in the rest of the world there are at least eight hundred forty five thousand dams and it's not only water they're holding back so all that sand that should be at the beach is behind the dam. one quarter of the sand reserves of the planet are hostage to these dams and the sand that makes it beyond the dams will run into another trapped river dredger.

although it's regulated in many countries it's still a widespread practice especially in countries where legislation this week the result about fifty percent of a sandwich or nurse the world's beaches will never reach the sea. the coastline like many other environments it's like the earth was always thought so big so vast that we couldn't have an impact on it we built a dam for water or electricity which is a good thing but downstream there's no more sand so somehow we have to figure out how to bring all those things back into balance by taking some conscious steps to try to reduce the impacts of those things we're doing as a civilization. on

the. ground up to green beaches slowly erode victims of decades of human interference. if you read the rising level. you get an ecological time bomb. to see right it's just going to happen a lot more quickly without saying. but it's not going to stop there it's going to take out in all half of manhattan and it's going to this could take our cities as well it's going. keep coming. the sand is our barricade and we have to understand that. in the middle of the indian ocean sand is a matter of life and death. of

the sand divers have been collecting call sand from the lagoon for years and selling its developers. but with sea levels rising this sand harvesting is leading to some serious problems. sounded as if it is precious commodity in the maldives because this one millimeter of the ocean touching you constantly every minute every second every day every year is such a false and it is eat. or you don't deny. the mall deaves our road at a moment here right residents do what they can to protect their homes but many beaches are little more the memories. really not god and i'd get all of them are sick and have a demonic in the house i'm in nevada did they come up with my idea how to undo what the law gave the one nun a difficulty down the dictaphone line number tunnel vision i got in riyadh only

make a name on a clinic the highgate at the lodge i didn't have a month in and it will need on the money but unless the unite in the going to come and live in. several hundred islands have already been evacuated and today the refugees crowd into larger and better protected islands such a small way the capital. already overcrowded new houses are being crammed together . but in another bitter irony of the sand wars new. construction require ever more sand. we have been in the middle of the indian ocean for the last five thousand is we have it in history that goes back to one thousand . because just die. far from the mild deaves beautiful threatened beaches greed and speculation drive the global markets for sand and show no signs of slowing down. bombay is not an isolated

case there's never been so much construction but at the same time housing has never been less affordable. one third of urban populations now live in slums while go cities and empty apartments are being built all over the world. in china sixty five million flats are empty yet the construction industry is flora xing swallowing up one quarter of the sand extracted on the planet spain holds the unfortunate record as the european country most addicted to sand in the midst of an unprecedented housing crisis thirty percent of the homes constructed since one thousand nine hundred six sit empty entire airports have been built without seen a single passenger and in dubai the emirate continues to build and import sand even if ninety percent of the apartments in the burj khalifa.