Living in an age of extinction II: Creating a Life Cairn

Why do no church bells ring when animals go extinct?

This was one of the questions that came up when Andreas Kornevall met with Reverend Peter Owen-Jones over a cup of tea and a plate of Indian curry. Kornevall had recently been to a workshop where a Guatemalan man related how he had lost his land and his culture and in relating his story the man became overcome with sorrow. Kornevall realized the men in the room were not accustomed to this public display of sorrow from another man and came to see how important it was, that grief was a way into thinking about the environment and change.

I caught up with Kornevall over Skype to ask him about the Life Cairn (previously mentioned here), which was begun over a year ago on Mount Caburn in East Sussex, England.

Daniel Hudon: Here in North America, we mostly see cairns as ways to guide hikers on mountain paths, but in England I understand they have an additional meaning.

Andreas Kornevall: That’s right, we also use them as markers, but for thousands of years, people here have been using them also as burial chambers. Around here (in East Sussex, England), there are many tumuli, which are mounds of graves, and they might have begun as cairns. Reverend Peter Owen-Jones has hosted a show in the BBC called 80 Faiths Around the World, and during our discussion we hit upon the idea of a cairn, a Life Cairn, as a way to mark the passings and address the passings of species that were going extinct. It began as a way to express our grief.

DH: How did you pitch the idea of the Life Cairn to the community?

AK: We held a meeting and about fifty people came – really a good amount of interest from a wide variety of people. People liked the idea. We’re just one stone; we hoped others would come and build on it.

DH: The Life Cairn was founded on May 22, 2011. What was the mood like that day?

AK: It’s hard to say what goes on in the minds of people. The first to lay stones were the youngest and the oldest who were present. According to tradition, water was put in the cairn. People came from all around to place their stones -- it’s on the eastern shoulder of Mt. Caburn, with a great view of the landscape and the sea. Though the whole project came from a place of grief and sorrow, there were songs and poems. It became festive. We were all wind-blown. Maybe it was something in our DNA, something from our burial customs – that go back thousands of years – when we were gathered around like that it felt like it needed to be done, this showing respect. It has been missing; at earlier times and in other cultures we showed more respect for animals – it’s been practiced before but it’s been forgotten now. Some say animal tracks are how we first learned to read – a debt we have forgotten. But yes, it became a happy event. People felt it was important to have paid tribute.

DH: What has happened since the Life Cairn was founded?

AK: People continue to come and lay stones. There are now about 3000 stones at the Life Cairn. There are no signs, no markings. It’s all word of mouth.

Since the opening, there have been spontaneous gatherings and poetry events, we’ve brought school groups up there for educational events about extinct species.

DH: Are you planning other Life Cairns?

AK: We just put one in the middle of Stockholm. We started one in Ecuador [which has more endangered species than any other country]. We have one planned with Catholic and Protestant priests in Northern Ireland. That’s on September 15. It’s like a water hole, a shared sense of responsibility. You’re there as a human being. It will be an open ceremony. Anyone can come.

Beyond that, I’d love to get one in every country. I’d love to set one up in front of the White House! (laughter)

DH: Setting one up in front of the White House would be something. How do you see the Life Cairn now? How are people treating it?

AK: Practically, as I said, as a place where we can gather to express our grief. It’s not an activist project. If it was an activist project, we would have put it in the center of  London. It’s a place for quiet reflection, for sanctuary. We lost two subspecies of rhino last year. When the Yangtze dolphin – the “Goddess of the River” – went extinct in 2006, there was no news. Same with the Pyrenean Ibex. We’re in the silent phase of the Sixth Extinction. But just as there’s an external climate change, we hope this will help create an inner climate change on how we relate to our environment, to overcome our feeling of being detached and blasé.

DH: An “inner climate change” is quite provocative.

AK: Well you know it’s true. The language of environmentalism is leaving us inert. Extinction is abstract. CO₂ is abstract. But biodiversity is not abstract. We grew up playing in trees, running around in the woods, chasing rabbits. This is not abstract. Look at things like “parts per million” and the statistics, these are facts that freeze us to death. Language is not communicating the depth of the problem. And certainly after Rio we see that language is not communicating enough – nations are not taking responsibility.

The vitality of the problem is missing and that’s how getting in touch with grief can help. There are no historical parallels here. As Aldo Leopold said, “For one species to mourn for another is a new thing under the sun.”

DH: Reverend Owen-Jones has a nice quote to summarize the project. Can you share that with us?

AK: It goes like this: “All life to carry one life, one life to carry all life.”

DH: Thanks for your Life Cairn. It’s a new way for us to consider the biodiversity crisis and to respond to it in a meaningful way.

AK: Thanks for giving me the chance to talk about it. 

Readers can visit the Life Cairn's Facebook page for more information, photos and videos. And if you're heading to East Sussex, bring a white stone for the Life Cairn. 

Find out about Andreas Kornevall's other projects, like the Earth Restoration Service, involved in proactive ecosystem restoration worldwide and Restore the Earth, which asks, "Will you leave a positive handprint on the Earth?"

Living in the Age of Extinction: The Lost Bird Project

The Great Auk sculpture on Fogo Island , photo by The Lost Bird Project

We live in an age of extinction. According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), in the last 500 years, human activity is known to have forced 869 species to extinction. This is a rate that is 1000 to 10,000 times greater than the normal background extinction rate seen in the fossil record. 

Paul Ehrlich has compared biodiversity or species loss to popping the rivets from an airplane. We don’t know which rivet is going to make the entire airplane fall apart -- we don’t know how many species an ecosystem can lose before it collapses. Ecosystems perform services that humans depend on, from filtering water and air, to providing food, decomposing waste, sequestering carbon, protecting shoreline and so on. As the saying goes :biodiversity is life, it is our life. 

But what about individual species? What does the loss of an individual species mean to us? A marsupial is over-hunted in Australia. A toad disappears in Costa Rica. An ibex vanishes from the Pyrenees, a river dolphin from the Yangtze, a pigeon from the skies North America. Given that the present attitude is still for us to dominate nature and extract its resources for our personal welfare, we tend to ignore what we’re losing in the name of so-called progress. In each case, what we are losing is a survivor whose lineage withstood droughts, floods and competition from other, a work of art that is the product of millions of years of evolution species, a masterpiece of nature. This is an impoverishment of our world, a lost opportunity for us to wonder at something unique and beautiful.

There are books about extinct species, including the spectacular Gap in Nature, by Tim Flannery, with superb illustration by Peter Schouten. There is an online memorial to extinct species called What is Missing, by Maya Lin, which I mentioned before. And on May 22, 2011, a group of citizens in England created the Life Cairn, a memorial for species rendered extinct by human hands – they also created quite a moving video of the event. I like how they summarize the project: All life to carry one life and one life to carry all life.

Finally, in various places in North America, we now have some larger than life memorial sculptures to recently extinct birds, thanks to artist Todd McGrain and his Lost Bird Project. From their webpage, The Lost Bird Project “recognizes the tragedy of modern extinction by immortalizing North American birds that have been driven to extinction.”

Todd McGrain in his studio, photo by The Lost Bird Project

North America used to have the Passenger Pigeon, a bird that flew in flocks vast enough to eclipse the sun for hours or even days at a time; the Carolina Parakeet, a bird with striking green plumage and a yellow head that lit up winter trees like candles; the Labrador Duck, which was wiped out before anyone recorded the sound of its call; the Heath Hen, whose males boomed and pounded the Earth to attract mates; and the Great Auk, a seabird who was a swift and agile swimmer that mated for life. All of these birds, except the Labrador Duck, were hunted to extinction. The cause of the extinction of the Labrador Duck is unknown: its eggs may have been over-harvested or the cause may be related to the decline of shellfish as population grew along the Eastern seaboard.

McGrain has spent the last few years creating bronze sculptures for each of these birds and they’ve been installed in places directly related to each bird’s decline. The bronze, of course, means they were created to last, but also to be touched. He describes them as “subtle, hopeful reminders…As a group they are melancholy, yet affirming. They compel us to recognize the finality of our loss, they ask us not to forget, and they remind us of our duty to prevent further extinction."

Labrador Duck, photo by The Lost
Bird Project

On the tree of life, the branches of the Passenger Pigeon and Carolina Parakeet have been cut. In the biosphere, there are now holes shaped like the Great Auk and Heath Hen. In all our technology, there's not a single recording of the call of the Labrador Duck. In a sense, it would have been more appropriate to have installed the moulds at the locations rather than the sculptures so that we could contemplate the shadows that these birds have cast upon us. Perhaps that's too negative a message for public art? Instead they are solid, smooth, tactile, reverent.

I think it’s an ambitious and enormously important project. Not only because, as McGrain says, “forgetting is also a kind of extinction” and these memorials rescue them to our memory, but also because we as a species need to be reminded of the enormous influence we wield on the world around us. The memorials need to be visited and discussed, the stories of these birds needs to be told and shared. These birds still have much to teach us about how we live and the repercussions of our actions.

It's bewildering to think that the formerly enormous populations of these birds were each wiped out in a matter of decades, due, in four of five cases, to over-hunting. In writing about the demise of the Passenger Pigeon, Aldo Leopold wrote, "For one species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun." This is the age of extinction. McGrain, like Leopold, correctly noted that we need a place to properly channel our grief for these lost species. These memorials are new things under the sun and their message is important -- if we're willing to hear it.

You can find out more about The Lost Bird Project by taking in the documentary, directed by Deborah Dickson, whose trailer is below.