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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
Fred de Sam Lazaro: From commerce to fishing, transport and rice production, the mighty Mekong River is the lifeblood of Southeast Asia.But, today, one of the biggest businesses on the river in Cambodia is dredging it for sand to make concrete, feeding one of the biggest industries in the developing world, development.Nowhere has demand for sand been greater than in Asia. Across this sprawling continent, tens of millions of miles of new roads have been built connecting hundreds of millions of new homes. Construction has driven the large economies, like China and India, and the smaller ones, like Cambodia, whose cities, like Phnom Penh, have joined the building binge.Skyscrapers, malls and apartments crowd the skyline, much of it investment from China, fueling an economy that's grown at a healthy 7.5 percent each year since 2005.Monyrath Yos of the government ministry overseeing mineral resources says sand mining plays an important role. Fred de Sam Lazaro: Exports of sand to Singapore, which came from Cambodia's coast, were banned in 2017, but environmentalist Vannak Hun, who's spent time in prison for his activism, says sand mining along the Mekong has continued at a record pace.It's not just the skyline of Phnom Penh, that's being transformed, he says, but the very surface of what was known as a city of lakes.Despite loud protests, Phnom Penh's biggest lake, Kak Boeung, was filled in with sand from the Mekong to create more land for construction. It was the largest of 12 lakes and wetlands that have disappeared from the city.
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