Socio-Economic impacts of Illegal Sand Mining

Illegal sand mining is the unlawful extraction of sand in the environment. Sand is important natural resources for economic development worldwide but the continuous removal have adverse effects on the environment and social impacts. There is a drastic increase in uncontrolled and unauthorised sand mining throughout South Africa. Illegal sand miners are exploiting sand and abandoning sites without implementing any form of rehabilitation. The study aim was to assess the socio-economy impacts. Questionnaire survey, semi-structured interviews, direct observation and field measurements were used as data collection technique. SPSS and Microsoft Excel were used in data analysis. The study established that the total number of trucks more than 120 extract sand illegally on daily basis. The study discovered that sand plays a vital role in a number of ways such as construction of private houses, shopping malls, government RDP houses, building of schools, clinics, maintenance of national roads and direct job creation for both manual loaders and truck drivers. There¿s a conflict between community members and sand miners are against this operation.