Mathias Depardon

Moving Sand is a transversal photography project which reports on the use of sand and the devastating environmental and social consequences of its extraction.

Sand is the most consumed natural resource on Earth after fresh water. Sand mining is the world’s largest mining endeavor, responsible for eighty-five percent of all mineral extraction. It is also the least regulated, and quite possibly the most corrupt and environmentally destructive.

Changing consumption patterns, population growth, increasing urbanisation, and
infrastructure development have tripled global sand demand over the past two decades. Our sand needs now amount to more than fifty billion tons per year, an average of forty pounds per person per day, enough to build a wall twenty-seven meters high and twenty-seven meters wide that stretches around the planet.

Dredging sand from rivers, beaches, and offshore locations is inexorably leading to
the disappearance of our beaches and rivers. This project has taken Mathias Depardon to photograph more than a dozen countries over the last five years to highlight the effects of sand mining on local environments and communities.