SANTO DOMINGO. – As the front end loaders other equipment used to extract sand and gravel are pulled out of the riverbanks, the people who live off those materials have now resorted to shoveling and filling the trucks by hand, to continue earning their income, and new foes for the country’s rivers.

Despite the Environment Ministry’s ban aimed at preventing the depredation of the rivers, the shovelers –called the ant men- believe the new practice doesn’t cause any damage.

Environment’s ban doesn’t sit well not only for those who’ve made fast money through that practice, but also for the shovelers who get only 200 pesos for filling a truck, complaining that now they cannot take the regular sustenance to their children as they did two or three weeks ago. In each trip the truck owners make as much as RD$7,000.

“Sand extraction is now a bad word, there’s a damn thing called Environment that has put the brakes on all,” said one of the “ant men” in Haina River, who asked not to print his name.