Rapid global urbanisation forces construction of roads, cities and buildings of the artificial islands across the world. Worldwide sand’s most common use is in construction material. Such constructions require a lot of sand. River sand is preferred for construction because it requires less processing and has better quality than sand from other sources. Mining of river sand is easy, less economically intensive and hence fuels illegal and unsupervised extraction. Jaflong is one of those zones where excessive sand extraction is also causing landscape degradation. During the monsoon, the river currents wash down pebbles and sand from India. “Sand family” of more than 7,000 men, women and children are engaged in extracting sand here.