Illegal beach sand mining, near Tangier, Morocco. Photograph: © SAF — Coastal Care
As of 2011-2012, when investigative filmmaker Denis Delestrac and team, were first collecting and unveiling sand mining datas and information from the professionals involved, “the Sand business was estimated to be a $70 billion industry, worldwide…!”—”Sand Wars” Multi Award-Winning Filmmaker Denis Delestrac (©-2013).
Excerpts:
The youth at Bakaano, a suburb of Cape Coast, have taken to illegal mining due to the unavailability of jobs…
Read Full Article; Ghana News (05-22-2018)
“We Were Once Three Miles From the Sea”; Ghana coastal erosion, an exhibit by Nyani Quarmyne
Grain by grain, West Africa’s coasts are eroding away, the dry land sucked under the water by a destructive mix of natural erosion and human meddling… Nyani Quarmyne has poignantly photographed the impacts of erosion on people living on the Ghana coast…
The Deadly Occupation Attracting Kenya’s Youth; IPS News (08-06-2014)
Sand is becoming a necessary component in fuelling the construction boom that is driving the rapid pace of urbanisation and rapid economic growth patterns in Kenya. Many of Kenya’s poor youth are turning to sand mining as a quick way of earning money, despite the deadly risks due to poor sand harvesting methods…
Jobless Youths Revert to Beach Sand Mining, John Obey Beach, Sierra Leone; Voice Of Sierra Leone (06-26-2013)
There´s a construction boom in Sierra Leone. For people desperate to earn a living, this all translates into break-neck, environmentally disastrous, 24-hour, seven-days-a-week operations to carry hundreds of tonnes of sand from the beaches and sell it to builders as construction material…
Schoolboys employed in sand mining, Tamil Nadu, India; The Hindu (03-03-2018)
Poverty and proximity to riverbeds have been weaning away a number of children studying in government schools and pushing them into sand mining. The sand mafia, in a bid to find cheap labour, has been using schoolchildren to lift sand from the riverbeds. The unsuspecting youngsters fall prey to the designs of the mafia, tempted by the money on offer…
The Women Sand Thieves, Cape Verde; A Video (08-05-2010),
-Translation from french original by Claire Le Guern / Coastal Care –
“Every day, hundreds of women scrape, shovel, dig, sift and hoard beach sand by the tons…”
The Market For African Beach Sand: Who’s Buying, Selling And Mining It? AFK Insider (02-17-2017)
Quick sand, dirty Money; South Africa; Hakai Magazine (12-05-2017)
Sand, Rarer Than One Thinks: A UNEP report (GEA-March 2014)
Despite the colossal quantities of sand and gravel being used, our increasing dependence on them and the significant impact that their extraction has on the environment, this issue has been mostly ignored by policy makers and remains largely unknown by the general public.
In March 2014 The United Nations released its first Report about sand mining. “Sand Wars” film documentary by Denis Delestrac – first broadcasted on the european Arte Channel, May 28th, 2013, where it became the highest rated documentary for 2013 – expressly inspired the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to publish this 2014-Global Environmental Alert.
The Conservation Crisis No One Is Talking About, TakePart (09-21-2016)
Beaches around the world are disappearing. No, the cause isn’t sea-level rise, at least not this time. It’s a little-known but enormous industry called sand mining, which every year sucks up billions of tons of sand from beaches, ocean floors, and rivers to make everything from concrete to microchips to toothpaste…
Sand Wars, An Investigation Documentary, By Award-Winning Filmmaker Denis Delestrac (©-2013)
“Sand is the second most consumed natural resource, after water. The construction-building industry is by far the largest consumer of this finite resource. The traditional building of one average-sized house requires 200 tons of sand; a hospital requires 3,000 tons of sand; each kilometer of highway built requires 30,000 tons of sand… A nuclear plant, a staggering 12 million tons of sand…”—Denis Delestrac -(©-2013)
Global Sand Mining: Learn More, Coastal Care
BE THE CHANGE:
PETITION: Take Action To End Global Beach Sand Mining, Coastal Care
Illegal beach sand mining, near Tangier, Morocco. Photograph: © SAF — Coastal Care
