Without effective control of sea sand digging, the Jiaozhou Gulf in Qingdao, in East China's Shandong Province, would suffer serious erosion, said experts from Ocean Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Fishery Environment Inspection Center under the Ministry of Agriculture.

Qingdao is expected to host some water sports events for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

The request comes less than a week after a digging ship from Anhui Province that illegally excavated sea sand in Jiaozhou Gulf three times, had to pay a 54,000 yuan (US$6,530) fine to the Qingdao Maritime Court last Friday.

The court said it was the sixth illegal sand-digging case it has penalized. One of the worst cases involved theft of nearly 1,000 tons of sand when captured. The sand is sold to foreign countries such as Japan, with a price tag of US$30 per ton.

According to local sources, weak ocean security has led to the theft of over 10,000 tons of sea sand in the Jiaozhou Gulf so far.

The sand along the shore of Jiaozhou Gulf took shape 10,000 years ago. Large-scale excavation will ultimately lead to severe seashore erosion, with large areas of the seashore disappearing.

Records show a bank collapse in 1993 caused water to flood more than 200 homes in Changdao Island in Shandong Province because of over-digging. Parts of the coastline in Rizhao, also in the province, has receded 100 meters for the same reason.

If the out-of-control excavation continues, experts said the estimated economic losses of fishery resources will exceed 1.8 million yuan (US$217,654), and the lancelet, one of China's State-protected animals, will also face extinction.

(China Daily March 19, 2002)