Following Climate COP27 and just days before Nature COP15 in Montreal, join us for this special event - with two global experts on sand mining - on how transforming today’s largely unregulated and unsustainable sand mining industry is critical to building climate resilience and boosting biodiversity in the region. And driving sustainable development.
Sand is strategic and critical to our societies and economies as it is the primary raw material for the construction industry and land reclamation. But extracting unsustainable amounts of sand from rivers and coastal ecosystems has severe impacts on people and nature - including leading to sinking and shrinking deltas, salinization, and the loss of livelihoods & biodiversity.
In regions like the Mekong Delta and many parts of Southeast Asia, sand is being extracted far faster than it can be naturally replenished to meet demands from urbanization and development. And demand is only set to rise. Yet the extraction, sourcing, use, and management of sand remain largely ungoverned, leading to numerous environmental and social consequences. But there are solutions - for the region and elsewhere.
Agenda – Wednesday 30 November, 7pm at the FCCT Clubhouse
Keynote presentations followed by Q&A:
- Regional launch of UNEP report - Sand and Sustainability: 10 strategic recommendations to avert a crisis.
- Stephanie Chuah, a co-author of the report, will outline available solutions, including using recycled or alternative materials as well as new institutional and legal structures, to reduce the impact of sand mining on wetlands, people, and nature.
- Lessons from the Mekong delta - Developing the world’s first, large, delta-wide sand budget and mapping impacts of sand mining Marc Goichot, WWF’s Asia-Pacific Freshwater Lead, will detail the groundbreaking project in the delta funded by the German IKI climate fund will feed into a plan to revise policies in the delta, which could be replicated in Asia’s other great deltas.
Panel discussion
- Dr. John Dore, Lead Advisor on Mekong-Australia Partnership & Water Energy Climate, SE Asia Division, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
- Sen Nguyen, journalist and podcast producer
- Stephanie Chuah, UNEP/GRID-Geneva Programme Officer
- Marc Goichot, WWF’s Asia-Pacific Freshwater Lead
This event will be live-streamed at: https://www.facebook.com/FCCThailand
Free and Open to All
