This is a picture of a Martian sand dune lit up by The Sun. Beautiful though it may be, it is devoid of one thing - LIFE.
Sand on planet Earth on the other hand, is a key part of ecosystems that are conducive to life. As we indiscriminately extract mind-numbing volumes of sand and its hidden minerals, we threaten much of what we hold most dear.
If you’ve read the Sand Stories book, you can download the discussion guide here
Other resources
This was a hybrid panel discussion at the 2021 World Resources Forum between Prof. Peduzzi, Director of UNEP/GRID-Geneva, and a panel of distinguished speakers and experts, who highlighted possible solutions to the environmental, governance and societal challenges related to sand.
Moderator: Pascal Peduzzi, UNEP/GRID-Geneva
Speakers:
Ian Selby, Director of Sustainable Geoscience, Sustainable Earth Institute, University of Plymouth
Daniel Franks, Professor, University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute
Kiran Pereira, Founder and Chief Storyteller, SandStories
Halinishi Yusuf, Managing Director, Makueni County Sand Conservation and Utilization Authority in Kenya
Marc Goichot, Freshwater Lead Asia Pacific, WWF
This report by the United Nations Environment Programme provides a global overview and potential solutions. It can be accessed here.
This book by award-winning journalist Vince Beiser, published in 2018, provides a fascinating account of sand and its importance in our lives.
This report by WWF released in 2018 spells out the impact of sand mining on rivers in particular.
This article published in Nature in 2019 reiterates the urgency of the situation. and the growing need to monitor and manage this resource globally.
This seminal work published in Science in 2017 explains why sand scarcity is an emerging issue with major sociopolitical, economic, and environmental implications at a global level.
This award-winning documentary by director Denis Delestrac, released in 2013, kick-started the whole global conversation around the disappearance of sand.
Sand is used extensively as a proppant in the hydrauling fracturing (fracking) industry.
FracTracker Alliance studies, maps, and communicates the risks of oil and gas development to protect our planet and support the renewable energy transformation. They have an incredible collection of images of frac sand mining, storage, processing and transportation.
Beach sand mining is a common practice across the world and it is very destructive.
Coastalcare.org run by the Santa Aguila Foundation provides a Sand Mining Database and Photo Gallery for reference. Experts from Coastal Care say Mining is particularly senseless in a time of rising sea level when sand is sorely needed as a storm energy buffer.
The Environmental Justice Atlas documents and catalogues social conflict around environmental issues. As the demand for sand and gravel escalates, so do the social and environmental impacts. As of Oct 2021, 107 cases of conflict due to sand and gravel mining were recorded across the world.
A circular economy is a system that is designed to keep products and materials in use, eliminate waste and pollution, and allow natural systems to regenerate. We can address the global sand crisis by keeping the materials we have already extracted in circulation for as long as we can. We also need to design products that do not require sand and gravel in the first place.
In this Voices conversation, Kiran Pereira, Founder of SandStories, and Annabel Short, a Built Environment Specialist at the Institute for Human Rights and Business explore the human and environmental impacts of sand extraction. The conversation also offers multiple innovative approaches to reduce the use of sand and to develop and scale up the use of sand alternatives. You can listen to the podcast here.