Life, extinction, and memory
We must remember nonhuman life facing extinction due to human activity so that current and future generations can help prevent further loss.
Humankind is mutilating the tree of life—modern extinction rates are already exceptionally high, and they are increasing. This suggests a mass extinction, the sixth of its kind in our Earth’s history, is underway. To truly “grasp the breadth of the carnage now going on, it’s essential to realize that the war against nature is being waged on an almost infinite number of planetary fronts.” When events of this magnitude happen to humans, for instance in the form of genocide, international law obliges states to pursue the truth of the nature and circumstances of what has occurred and communicate this to future generations. This goal can be realized in various ways, including honoring the memory of victims. The nonhuman enjoy a similar right.
There is growing acceptance that nonhumans hold certain rights, particularly the right to life. In 2008, Ecuador became the first country to codify rights of nature in its constitution. Thirteen years later, Ecuador’s Constitutional Court ruled that “a violation of the right of nature to the full respect for its existence occurs through activities that lead to the extinction of species. This is a violation of such magnitude that it would be equivalent to what genocide means and implies, in the field of human rights.” Other countries took similar steps. In 2014, Aotearoa New Zealand passed the Te Urewera Act, which grants the forest legal personhood and the same rights, powers, duties, and liabilities as any other of the country’s citizens. In 2018, Bolivia passed a law recognizing Madre Tierra’s (Mother Earth’s) right to life and diversity of life. The same year, Colombia’s Supreme Court granted legal rights to rivers and the Amazon River ecosystem for the “sake of protecting this vital ecosystem for the future of the planet.” Courts in India and Bangladesh have similarly recognized the rights of rivers. And in July 2025, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued an advisory opinion recognizing that nature has rights and ought not be treated simply as a resource for exploitation.
Memorialization allows a society to debate the causes and consequences of past crimes, helps identify direct and indirect responsibility, and spurs the development of measures to prevent the repetition of such crimes.
The ongoing extermination of the nonhuman world is, in part, driving the growing global consensus that nonhumans enjoy the right to life. However, the violation of the right to life gives rise to other rights, including the right to truth via memorialization. Memorialization allows a society to debate the causes and consequences of past crimes, helps identify direct and indirect responsibility, and spurs the development of measures to prevent the repetition of such crimes. As Farida Shaheed has argued, “actions in the field of culture have an unparalleled potential to contribute significantly to transitional processes.” Pablo Picasso’s 1937 painting Guernica, which depicts the bombing of a small town in northern Spain, is one of the most vivid examples of memorialization achieved through painting, working “in conjunction with the international press, exposed the brutality of the attack.”
But how do we remember the erasure of the nonhuman? Key to answering this question is the application of a multispecies approach to justice that decenters “the human as the sole subject of moral consideration.” Justice first and foremost demands a realization of and respect for the intrinsic dignity and the rights of nonhuman. It also demands investigation into the causes, the actors, the contexts, and the effects of human activity that has led to nonhuman extinction. We also need to consider that while nonhumans enjoy the right to truth, humans must ensure its implementation. This responsibility stems partially from the need to transform the current system of interspecies relations, which is built on legacies of colonialism and resource extraction.
The memorialization process has already begun. The Conference of the Parties on the Convention on Biological Diversity tracks the extent of damage inflicted on the natural world by humans. Activists and artists similarly created the “Remembrance Day for Lost Species” in 2011. Unfortunately, this annual day of commemoration remains “largely on the fringe from an international environmental perspective.” Internet access simplifies searching for vestiges of the disappeared: a quick online search will produce thousands of articles and videos of species, such as the Tasmanian tiger, made extinct by humans.
But how do we remember the erasure of the nonhuman?
Film could play a particularly important role in this process. Decision-makers, no less than ordinary citizens, experience its transformative impact. In one notable example, United States President Ronald Reagan cited the 1983 film The Day After, a fictional dramatization of nuclear war, as influencing his decision to sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Films like All That Breathes (2022) can also amplify the voice of the nonhuman. In the award-winning documentary, birds fall from the skies, wild animals scavenge piles of trash, social unrest fills the streets, and two brothers and a rotating cast of human and nonhuman characters explore survival in the age of extinction. The film memorializes the disappearing “wild” but also offers a path for interspecies reparative relations, aptly summarized in its final message that “life itself is kinship.”
The threat of extinction faced by the nonhuman world demands not only that we prevent it but also that we remember its causes. Documenting our failures can help future generations avoid repeating the mistakes that have led us to this tragedy. However, memorialization is not a miracle cure. The Aral Sea, once a flourishing ecosystem in Central Asia and the fourth largest lake in the world, has now largely disappeared thanks to irresponsible irrigation of farmland. Stories of environmental disaster have been captured the world over but have not motivated an adequate response. Yet we must continue to seek novel interspecies solutions to prevent and reverse the ongoing human-caused extinction of the nonhuman. Simply writing obituaries is no way to save a life.
