International Remembrance Day for Lost Species

UPDATE MAY 2016: Please like the RDLS facebook page to keep up to date wtih the project!
https://www.facebook.com/internationa...

Remembrance for Lost Species: lest we forget. Three species are lost to eternity every hour.

Extinction is studied by scientists. Culturally, however, we risk forgetting the beauty and distinct life of extinct species and our historic relationship with past life forms.

This is a chance to learn and tell the stories of those lost in the sixth mass extinction, and to renew commitments to those remaining. Extinctions are invariably linked to the loss of cultures and places too.

In 2011 and 2012, people held species memorial events around the UK and internationally. This November 30th, hold your own extinction memorial event – or just light a candle. Let us know what you are planning and we will add it to the online map of Remembrance events.

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msi...

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The anthropogenic extinction rate is off the scale.
When a species is declared extinct ... when we learn that they will never again draw breath, or swim, slither, flower or set seed - and that this is down to our own unconscious, disconnected hand ... no President gives a memorial speech, no Queen lays a wreath.

In Britain, we might get a 7am Radio 4 headline - and that's it .. like in October 2011, when two sub-species of rhino were declared extinct within 3 weeks of each other ... We shake our heads sadly for a moment then get on with the school run and hide our hearts from the pain, because we simply cannot emotionally comprehend the enormity of it all.

How can we do anything about this overwhelming nightmare - often of our own collective causing - if we do not begin by engaging with the grief?

Vanessa