More disappearing Islands (FreakonomicsBlog)

March 29, 2010, 10:30 AM

Land Smugglers

By FREAKONOMICS

Black-market smugglers are literally stealing Indonesia’s small islands, including the legendary Krakatoa. “Sea reclamation projects in China, Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore are driving a black market in Indonesia’s abundant supplies of soil, sand and gravel,” reports The Times of London.  Twenty-four islands have allegedly disappeared since 2005 due to erosion driven by sand mining. The mining wreaks havoc with both the environment and the local economy: “In the Riau Islands the fishermen have lost 80 per cent of their income as a result of sand mining,” said Riza Damanik, of the People’s Coalition for Justice in Fisheries.

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  From The Times
  
  
  
  

  March 23, 2010

  The black marketeers stealing Indonesia’s islands by the boat-load

  

  Anak Krakatau has risen through renewed volcanic activity to a height of 300 metres

  
  

  
  

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  Richard Lloyd Parry, Krakatoa
  

  
  

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  For the people of Sebesi Island, who spend their lives next to the world’s biggest natural time bomb, it seemed to be an offer that they could not refuse.

  A businessman from the Indonesian mainland landed one day with a remarkable proposal: to make safe their deadly neighbour, the notorious volcano island of Krakatoa, hulking in the sea a few miles across the water.

  When Krakatoa exploded in 1883 36,000 people died and the dust thrown up by the eruption lowered temperatures and darkened skies across the globe.

  So the fishermen welcomed the offer of trenches to channel the lava and reduce the danger of the next explosion. However, when the boats arrived and the work began, they realised with anger that the kindly businessman was not renovating Krakatoa. He was stealing it.
  
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