Environmental Reflections of Plundering Natural resources of Western Sahara

Abstract

The continuous and extensive exploitation of natural resources in Western Sahara has undeniably negative consequences for the environment. However, there is a notable lack of significant studies investigating its environmental repercussions. The marine resources in Western Sahara, exploited by foreign fleets for decades and further depleted under Moroccan occupation, have reached alarming levels. The extraction, transportation, and processing of phosphate rocks from the Boukraa mine, one of the world’s largest phosphate mines, have resulted in severe pollution, which pose substantial health risks and contaminate water sources, air quality, soil, and the marine ecosystem. The absence of an effective environmental policy enforced by the Moroccan occupation is directly responsible for this damaging environmental state.