- An environmental group in Cambodia alleges that sea sand exports to Singapore have quietly resumed despite a 2017 government ban, citing new footage of dredging operations and cargo vessels bound for the city-state.
- The allegations by Mother Nature Cambodia revive long-standing concerns over sand mining in Koh Kong province, where dredging has been linked to environmental damage and declining fisheries, and where a previous export scandal prompted the 2017 ban.
- Cambodia’s minister of mines defended sand mining as important for navigation and construction, while acknowledging environmental concerns, but did not address claims that exports to Singapore have resumed.
- The dispute comes as Mother Nature Cambodia continues to face pressure from the government, with several of its members imprisoned on charges widely viewed as retaliation for exposing environmental abuses.
BANGKOK — Environmental activism group Mother Nature Cambodia on July 14 posted a new video alleging that Cambodia has quietly resumed sand exports to Singapore after the trade was banned in 2017. The prohibition followed a scandal involving environmental degradation along Cambodian rivers linked to shipments of sand sold to Singapore for land reclamation projects.
In its latest video, Mother Nature Cambodia documented sand dredgers operating in waterways in Koh Kong province in Cambodia’s southwest, with footage appearing to show barges belonging to Catalyst Marine and Resources (Cambodia), a Singaporean-directed sand mining company that’s been registered in Cambodia since December 2024.
Footage shows large-scale sand mining operations, including barges bearing the logo of Catalyst Marine and Resources, dredging sea sand from the coastal waterways of Koh Kong.
Catalyst Marine and Resources’ barges were then tracked by Mother Nature Cambodia to two large cargo boats located just off the coast of Koh Kong Krao, Cambodia’s largest island, which is largely controlled by the Cambodian navy. Tracking devices on the cargo boats show those vessels are bound for Singapore, reigniting old fears that environmentally unsustainable sand dredging has resumed in Koh Kong to fuel land reclamation projects.
“I have many questions, but today I will ask just one to Minister [of Mines and Energy] Keo Rattanak,” Lisa Mean, an activist with Mother Nature Cambodia, asks in the group’s latest video. “When did you quietly scrap the 2017 ban on sea sand exports?”
Lisa then called on Cambodians to join the activist group in demanding an immediate end to what she called “Cambodia’s sand theft.”
This echoes back to 2017, when trade figures from the two countries revealed a major gap: Cambodia reported exporting some 16 million metric tons of sand to Singapore since 2007, but Singapore reported importing 72 million metric tons of sand from Cambodia. A spokesperson for Cambodia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy then announced a permanent ban on exports in 2017, citing environmental concerns.
The ban seems to have had limited impact. Data from the U.N. trade statistics database Comtrade show that Cambodian exports sands covered under the category that includes river and marine sand reached $755 million in value between 2017 and 2025, with 128 million metric tons exported to China, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, as well as “other Asian countries” during that period.
Mongabay sought comment from Rattanak via Telegram, a messaging app popular among Cambodian government officials, and via the ministry’s official email address, but did not receive a response as of the time this story was published.
However, Rattanak publicly defended the government’s sand mining policies, and on July 17 was quoted in the government-aligned Phnom Penh Post as saying that such operations were crucial for water navigation, infrastructure development, and to sell to the construction sector. He did note that there are concerns regarding the environmental impacts associated with sand mining.
“The concerns raised by the public are legitimate concerns that the ministry and relevant institutions must continue to consider,” he was quoted as saying in the Phnom Penh Post.
The minister did not mention Singapore or sand exports in his interview.
Attempts to call Cheryl Lee Yen Yong, spokesperson for Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry, saw calls go to voicemail. To date, Mongabay has received no response to questions sent to the ministry by email.
Mother Nature Cambodia has long protested and organized against sand mining operations in Koh Kong, where local fishing communities saw their livelihoods decimated after dredging began in estuaries across the province in 2008.
Three members of Mother Nature Cambodia spent 10 months in prison after allegedly threatening to damage sand mining boats. Another five members of the group were jailed in July 2024, receiving between six and eight years behind bars, this time on charges of plotting against the government and insulting the king — charges that are widely seen as politically motivated, given the group’s continued work exposing environmental crimes in Cambodia. The Mother Nature Cambodia Five remain in prison at the time of publication.
Banner image: Sand barges bearing the logo of Catalyst Marine and Resources documented in Trapeang Roung commune, Koh Kong province, Cambodia, by Mother Nature Cambodia activists in July 2026. Image supplied by Mother Nature Cambodia.
