Mining of Coastal Sand: a Critical Environmental and Economic Problem for Morocco

In Morocco, the extraction of beach and dune sand for use in the construction industry is destroying significant portions of the nation’s natural heritage. The authors of this report have significant experience in evaluating coastal mining worldwide. We believe that the coastal sand mining operations that we witnessed in Morocco are the world’s largest. In addition, the environmental impacts of the sand extraction are likewise enormous. Beach mining, mainly near Morocco’s major coastal cities, has created lunar-like landscapes on the coast, destroyed the littoral marine ecosystem, is endangering adjacent wetlands, and has significantly increased the vulnerability of coastal infrastructure to storms and rising sea level. Once beautiful coastal dunes have been entirely removed along long reaches of shoreline. This is a potential economic disaster for coastal tourism in Morocco. Many beaches have been so heavily impacted by mining that they have been rendered unusable for touristic development. For the sake of its future generations, Morocco should halt the mining of coastal sand now and find new sources of aggregate.