Mar 31, 2010
Too Strange
“This is a national park and a Unesco World Heritage Site and you’re not allowed to touch it. The local people rely on the fishing and the income from tourism, and here they were taking Krakatoa away.” And Krakatoa is just one case among thousands.
With more than 17,000 islands — from the jungly immensities of Borneo and Sumatra to unnamed rocks jutting out of the sea — you might think that Indonesia would not mind if a few of them went missing. But the South-East Asian nation is fighting a losing battle against black marketeers who are, literally, making off with its territory by the boat-load…
Sea reclamation projects in China, Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore are driving a black market in Indonesia’s abundant supplies of soil, sand and gravel. In 2007 Indonesia banned the export of its sand and soil and threatened a shoot on sight policy against foreign sand pirates and gravel bandits. But, thanks to corrupt local officials who sign off on permits and turn a blind eye to where the material ends up, the smugglers are winning.
Since 2005 at least 24 small islands have disappeared as a result of erosion caused by sand mining.
The whole, very strange story, is told by The Times Online. ht Freakonomics Blog