Peru's Gold Rush: Stephen Sapienza at SIUC

In the Madre de Dios region of Peru, a virgin rainforest is losing ground to unrestricted wildcat gold mining. Extensive gold-mining operations have stirred major environmental concerns over loss of habitat and mercury contamination in fish, fish-eating wildlife and humans. On the campus of Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, videojournalist Stephen Sapienza will screen two of his short films on Peru, and discuss the environmental and sociopolitical factors that are contributing to a runaway gold rush in this pristine region of the Amazon.

Sapienza is an award-winning news and documentary producer who has covered a wide range of human security stories, including the HIV crisis in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, child soldiers in Sierra Leone, climate refugees in Bangladesh, and landmine survivors in Cambodia.

His awards include a 2009 News & Documentary Emmy as part of the Pulitzer Center team to create LiveHopeLove.com, a ground-breaking multimedia project focusing on the human face of HIV/AIDS in Jamaica. In 2008 he received the Ruth Adams Award for reporting on dwindling water supplies in Asia. In 2002, he produced Deadlock: Russia's Forgotten War for CNN Presents, winner of CINE Golden Eagle. Previously, he was co-director of Azimuth Media and senior producer with the global affairs television series "Foreign Exchange with Zareed Zakaria".

Among his latest projects is the production of "Easy Like Water," a documentary about the impact of climate change on Bangladesh.

The event is free and open to the public.

April 19, 2012
6:00 pm
Communications Building --1032
Southern Illinois University-Carbondale
1100 Lincoln Drive
Carbondale, IL 62901

This event is sponsored by the School of Journalism, Department of Radio-Television, Department of Cinema & Photography, the Global Media Research Center, and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.