你可能從未聽聞的全球環境危機
From Cambodia to California industrial-scale sand mining is causing wildlife to die local trade to wither and bridges to collapse. And booming urbanisation means the demand for this increasingly valuable resource is unlikely to let up
從柬埔寨到加里福利亞的工業砂開採正在導致野生動物死亡，當地貿易緊縮和橋樑坍塌。日益繁榮的城市化意味着對這種日加貴重的資源的需求不太可能停止。Times are good for Fey Wei Dong. A genial middle-aged businessman based near Shanghai China Fey says he is raking in the equivalent of ￡180000 a year from trading in the humblest of commodities: sand.
時代益於馮衛東，一個來自中國上海附近的和善的中年商人。馮說他一年可從沙這種粗劣商品交易中斂利180000英鎊。
Fey often works in a fishing village on Poyang Lake China’s biggest freshwater lake and a haven for millions of migratory birds and several endangered species. The village is little more than a tiny collection of ramshackle houses and battered wooden docks. It is dwarfed by a flotilla anchored just offshore of colossal dredges and barges hulking metal flatboats with cranes jutting from their decks. Fey comes here regularly to buy boatloads of raw sand dredged from Poyang’s bottom. He ships it 300 miles down the Yangtze River and resells it to builders in booming Shanghai who need it to make concrete.
馮經常去鄱陽湖邊的一個漁村，鄱陽湖是中國最大的淡水湖和成千上萬的候鳥以及許多瀕危物種的天堂。這個村很小更像是破敗的房屋和破木碼頭的小聚集地。和停在岸邊的巨大船隻相比，村莊顯得特別渺小，那裏停靠着巨型的採砂船和駁船以及裝有起重機的笨重金屬平底船。馮定期的來這裏買成船的從鄱陽湖底開採的原沙。沿江向下船運300英里然後轉售給在繁榮的上海需要沙來造混凝土的建築商們。
The demand is voracious. The global urbanisation boom is devouring colossal amounts of sand – the key ingredient of concrete and asphalt. Shanghai China’s financial centre has exploded in the last 20 years. The city has added 7 million new residents since 2000 raising its population to more than 23 million. In the last decade Shanghai has built more high-rises than there are in all of New York City as well as countless miles of roads and other infrastructure. “My sand helped build Shanghai Pudong airport” Fey brags.
需求旺盛的今天。全球城市化急速發展正在吞食海量的沙——這種瀝青和混凝土的關鍵原料。中國的金融中心上海在近二十年中爆發式發展。這個城市從2000年以來增加了七百萬居民，達到如今的二千三百多萬。在過去十年上海建造的高樓比整個紐約市還多，以及無法度量長度的路和其他基礎設施。馮自詡：“由我的沙子建造的上海浦東機場。”Hundreds of dredgers may be on the lake on any given day some the size of tipped-over apartment buildings. The biggest can haul in as much as 10000 tonnes of sand an hour. A recent study estimates that 236m cubic metres of sand are taken out of the lake annually. That makes Poyang the biggest sand mine on the planet far bigger than the three largest sand mines in the US combined. “I couldn’t believe it when we did the calculations” says David Shankman a University of Alabama geographer and one of the study’s authors.
任何一天，都有數以百計的採砂船在湖上作業，一些的如橫放的公寓樓一樣大小。最大的一小時能採集10000噸沙。最近研究估計每年有236兆立方米被挖出湖。這就使鄱陽湖成爲世界上最大的採砂場，遠比美國3大沙場合起來還大。亞拉巴馬大學的地理學家以及該研究的作者之一的戴維山克曼說：“在統計的時候我都不敢相信。“All that dredging researchers believe is a key reason why the lake’s water level has dropped dramatically in recent years. So much sand has been scooped out says Shankman – 30 times more than the amount that flows in from tributary rivers – that the lake’s outflow channel has been drastically deepened and widened nearly doubling the amount of water that flows into the Yangtze. The lower water levels are translating into declines in water quality and supply to surrounding wetlands. It could be ruinous for the area’s inhabitants both animal and human.
採掘研究學者都認爲上述情況是近年湖水面線顯著下降重要原因。山克曼說30倍於支流沙量流入的量被開採，導致湖流出通道被大幅度的加深和加寬接近2倍於流入長江的徑流量。低水面線導致周圍溼地的水質和水供應日益下降。這可能對生存於該地區的動物和人造成毀滅性的影響。
