"The sand trade in Mahera has created a small supply chain involving young men who extract the sand, women who buy and resell, landowners who provide storage facilities and truck drivers who transport the sand. It has also thrown a lifeline at women without an income. In March this year, the World Bank published an assessment on the scale and impact of sand mining on select tourism and coastal communities in Sierra Leone. Around the world, rising demand has turned sand into a valuable resource, linking its trade to construction, transport and environmental concerns. Globally, sand and gravel are the second-most extracted natural resources by volume, after water. A global study by the U.N. Environment Programme on sand sustainability, too highlighted the environmental and social risks of rising extraction, recording how the global demand for sand is exceeding ecological limits, with large-scale sand extraction from marine and coastal ecosystems leading to biodiversity loss, damage to coastal communities and increased risks due to climate change. Role of women The World Bank’s Sierra Leone Circular Economy Project shows sand extraction’s ecological cost and impacts on the Lungi community. As uncontrolled sand and beach mining severely erode coastlines, destroying local tourism across the country, in the informal mining economies, women frequently shoulder heavy physical labor such as carrying massive weights and manual sorting, driven by severe poverty, agricultural disruption and a lack of alternative employment. While poverty touches men and women alike, the women continue to bear a disproportionate burden not just in Mahera, but globally. Globally, women often depend on sand mining for income while being disproportionately affected by the social and environmental costs. A 2023 investigation showed how women in Cambodia, India, Kenya and Indonesia resisted against powerful sand mining operations in their respective communities. A 2023 research paper highlighted the gender roles in sand extraction in the Usumacinta River in Guatemala and Mexico. Media reports from India show how women from coastal communities become economically dependent on sand mining but are forced to deal with increased environmental costs. At present, sand mining provides an income in a place where alternate work is scarce. The earnings, though woefully inadequate, help meet basic needs. Even though many widowed women in Mahera rely heavily on sand trading and despite high reliance on the extractive industry, women like Kargbo welcome economic alternatives so they could quit the sand trade. They are aware of the impacts caused by the unregulated trade that weaken their environment landscape and acknowledge that their landscape is changing. “Since we started three years back, the changes have affected the way water moves on the beach area,” said Kargbo." https://t.co/o9ooP2RfSk

— SIERRAEYESALONE (@sierraeyesalone) October 14, 2026