but the sand is free. so the thousands of tankers combing the world's oceans have every incentive to suck up as much sand as possible for their increasingly hungry clients. is an astonishing example of this appetite within a few decades this fishing village has morphed into a modern architecture is a sandbox for developers were no fantasies to grandiose. but 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 island. landfills or even bigger consumers of sand and concrete.

with a booming economy the emirate launched them bitches 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 devoured more than one hundred fifty million tons of sand dredge from coastline. with a 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 president had opportunity can be found it is almost as resort official archipelago of three hundred islands designed as a map of the world absorbed fourteen billion dollars and three times as much sand as the palm. the world. a place beyond imagination.

today the world is a mirage the work site has been abandoned since the onset 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 to buy as natural sand resources and you think we'll find of course dubai is on the edge of the desert they've got older style and they need 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 and 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 which 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 of 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 you see is this huge trade around the world moving from one another for different purposes such construction vaccination. 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 for lying on the import. for its very existence in the land mass is 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 ration potatoes targeted 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 still 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. you're going to hear very every day every week.

this what is the visual so don't come put it. in. your individual. little. north korean television company you are going to us an awful country. 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 can. but in the same system. which i think is it just it was invisible. but this is the distaste. for.

the law with the tacit support of the government their most loyal client. the sun trading singapore's he usually have a political it's a massive of ours were concerned it's just a is build a. leader in the region particularly with the last global sun that's 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 benign. 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. on the sea floor they will all

be dredged up as well and therefore whatever living communities are they will just be at the meeting at the sand is the primary blink in the underwater food chain remove it and the survival of all species from the smallest to the largest is 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 many d.v.d.'s when this coral reef we lost fish. livelihood. we lose 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 set. 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 the natural prothesis and human excavation the island can literally disappear. one of the most stunning and pax of the trade was the disappearance of some of the islands off the coast of indonesia which have literally vanished when we use that sand.

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 donkeys descend on the beaches seven days a week. in search of. sand. the men on 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. i'd want that i wrote back i wrote back i have i don't want to give you. are you know that i'm not going to bend an addendum going to not wonder how you could have been acquitted oh well coming up to you had no love no my love my double

got nothing. by that i mean i got them help oh yeah. look i do one thing yes i did was really i do what you guys write with their day but didn't come but you're mad you're not going out your head not them have them come we don't want but i'm not going to get your creativity oh 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. and home lavey 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. a lot of the feeble hold. 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 eight houses 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 her on the beach front were row number two and i have the fact that the house won't be here in five here. with both the house about two years ago hoping that we would be

able to retire here. but from here you could 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 meant 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 worse.

being located outside that western centric sphere of influence where we're able to bring a different perspective to global events when you peel away the lists of cove a minute tree in the financial dollars getting you see the people in those words and those policies are affecting see the emotion on their faces the situation they're living in that's when all of us can identify with the story. xenophobe violent and beating the drum for an ethnic civil war in the heart of europe. al-jazeera infiltrates one of the continent's past just growing right organizations and exposes links to members of the european parliament and marine appends national party generation the hate. part one a special two part investigation on al-jazeera one of the really special things

about working for al-jazeera is that even as a camera woman i get to have so much empathy and contribution to a story i feel we cover this region better than anyone else would be what it is you know it's very challenging they believe but the good because you have a lot of people that are divided on political issues we are with the people we live to tell the real story so i'll just amend it is to deliver in-depth journalism we don't feel inferior to the audience across the globe. your child has their arms the whole roberdeau all these are all top news stories the u.s. president's chief of staff joe kelly has quit his post donald trump is in talks with the vice president's top a week as to succeed kelly. john kelly will be leaving but

i don't know if i can say retiring but he's a great guy john kelly will be leaving at the end of the year we'll be announcing will be taking john place it might be on an interim basis of you now saying that over the next day or two but john will be leaving at the end of the year he's been with me almost two years now as you know we do. so. we're probably going to see him in a little while the french riot police of running street battles with thousands of anti-government protesters in paris it's the fourth straight weekend of the yellow vest protest against the government or the nine hundred seventy people have been detained across the country if you look as you did you can ducks no tax is that important to threaten national unity we must continue with dialogue with coming together the president will propose measures to bring together the french nation and to deal with the challenges that they have to deal with and protests took an equally

violent turn in neighboring belgium as the yellow first demonstrations spread across europe seventy people have been arrested in brussels after confrontations near the buildings that house the european union people testers are calling for the resignation of prime minister charlene michel. and china is warning canada holds severe consequences if it doesn't release a top executive of one of the world's largest telecom companies highways chief financial officer main one who has been arrested on charges of evading u.s. sanctions against iran the canadian courts are deciding whether to extradite her to the u.s. and the third day of u.s. led talks saved ending the war in yemen have had a major stumbling block the two warring factions are divided over the fate of president who are the ones who have the the who the rebels want him to step down but the government says he'll only go if you lose an election. police in egypt killed two men they say what involved in a bus attack christians the government says it killed nineteen of the suspects

going to. the seven christians returning from which some were killed those with the al jazeera news we continue with some tools here because of. the world that is running out of sand consumed by industry and 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 to seasonal changes and summer beaches grow thicker and in winter they receive a 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 same 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 the world's. increasing density by twenty twenty five to three quarters of the world's

inhabitants will live near the ocean and those ribbons of sand would surround the continents are feeling the pressure. if we think. of the water and i hope that we learn from that but now we're here. 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 of. the beaches. to keep their beaches viable cities that can afford to invest. in. a dredge home sand from the ocean floor and force it onto the beach. some people see this is a solution others see it as a band-aid which only true. 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 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. replenishment 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 the thing 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 dan 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 a rock 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 just 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 dec relation of independence and seven hundred seventy six one a day. eighty thousand dams block the rivers of the united states in 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 dance. 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 trap 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 after green beach is 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 hit 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. on the. sand divers have been collecting call sand from the lagoon for years and selling with developers. but with sea levels rising this sand harvesting is leading to some serious problems. and. sad it is a very ambitious 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 easy. 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 in a demonic in the home and nobody did it come up with a 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 level i get given every month in an economical need of 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 on to 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 we're choir's ever more sand. we have been in the middle of the indian ocean for the last five thousand is the have it in history that goes back two thousand. you can't 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 have.