China’s war over sand

Environmentalists have long fretted about soaring global demand for sand. It is used to make the concrete that is being poured into the world’s expanding cities, often at the expense of vital ecosystems such as rivers and lakes from which the material is extracted. No country is hungrier for it than China, where the damage caused by rampant illegal mining has been enormous. In March the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, called it “irreparable”.