Initial environmental examination report : commercial sand mining at Fushidiggaru Falhu, South Male Atoll, Republic of Maldives

Abstract

Sand mining as primary source of construction material has been on going from olden times. Traditionally sand is mined from island beaches mainly for convenience and easy access. However, due to erosion issues that result from sand mining in a given location several island communities are ware and complain about these problems. Therefore there is regulation on limiting and area where sand mining can be carried out. This is however not followed and often difficult to police. Self imposed good practice is followed by many communities shifting to near-shore lagoon area and sand cays nearby. Nevertheless sand mining from beaches is still continued. Currently there is high demand for coral sand due to booming construction industry. Limited natural resources as building material has led exploitation of this resource throughout Maldives for construction industry irrespective of the environmental issues related to marine resource extraction. The demand for natural resource is contrastingly high in Male region. As a result there are several supplier of sand in Male locally known as ‘sand miners’. Operated using a motorized boat 6-10 people travel to distance reefs and manually extract sand from shallow areas (1-2 meter depth) and bring back to Male at a designated site at south west corner of Male. Stock oiled sand is then available for sale. Recently some enterprising sand miners are seeking innovative methods for efficient and more convenient mining. Electric pump aided sand mining has initiated recently by the proponent of this project for commercial supply of sand. Sand pumps are quite commonly used for sand pumping for beach replenishment related works in the resorts. This is however screened through Environmental Impact Assessments as required by the EIA regulation of Maldives. Environmental Protection Agency of Maldives thus seek to follow the same protocol for sand pump aided or related extraction of sand for commercial purpose thus the proponent has been asked to submit an EIA report for approval before proceeding with the project any further. Prior to this the proponent has requested for a permit for sand mining from the Ministry of Fisheries (see appendix 1). Based on the above requirement, a scoping meeting to agree on the terms of reference for the EIA report was held at EPA on 21st April 2011. Based on the description of components project at the scoping meeting it was agreed among the stakeholder that a full EIA would not be required for the project. It was decided that an Initial Environmental Examination would be sufficient. This Initial Environmental Examination (IEE) report thus fulfils the requirements specified in the Terms of Reference (ToR) prepared for this project as output of the scoping meeting held at EPA between EIA consultant, proponent, representatives from EPA and other relevant stakeholders. In preparing the report consideration has been given to cover the environmental requirements that need to be covered by EIA regulations giving due consideration to the scale, location and usage of the project and its outputs. The Terms of Reference to the project is approved by EPA on 25th April 2011. A copy of ToR is given in Appendix 2. This IEE was based on the fieldwork visit by the consultant to Fushidiggaru falhu (project site) in 25th April 2011 to collect site specific information on the project and qualitatively assess the environmental components that would be affected from the implementation of the project.