Description

In keeping with our principal WEP theme of light we are presenting a session of "Movies @ WEP" featuring a wide array of classic and contemporary movies. Sand Wars (2012): Most of us think of it as a complimentary ingredient of any beach vacation. Yet those seemingly insignificant grains of silica surround our daily lives. Every house, skyscraper and glass building, every bridge, airport and sidewalk in our modern society depends on sand. We use it to manufacture optical fiber, cell phone components and computer chips. Is sand an infinite resource? Can the existing supply satisfy a gigantic demand fueled by construction booms? What are the consequences of intensive beach sand mining for the environment and the neighboring populations? Based on encounters with sand smugglers, barefoot millionaires, corrupt politicians, unscrupulous real estate developers and environmentalists, this investigation takes us around the globe to unveil a new gold rush and a disturbing fact: the "Sand Wars" have begun. The film premiered at the Cinema Publicis on the Champs-Elysees in 2013 and was first broadcast in May in France and Germany, where it became the highest rated documentary for 2013. Among many other outreach victories, this multiple award-winner film inspired the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to publish a Global Environmental Alert in March 2014 titled "Sand, rarer than one thinks".