Black Book
Meet the animals who were driven to extinction
Since 1970, populations of all wildlife have declined by an average of 69%.
To date, more than 150,300 species have been added to the IUCN Red List.
Over 42,100 animal species are threatened with extinction.
This number represents 28% of all assessed species.
BOOK PROJECT CONCEPT
The main Idea:
This book is a museum, a gallery of animals driven to extinction by humankind. Each part of the book is a museum hall.
- The black hall shines a light on the animals that have tragically been lost.
- The gray hall gives a glimpse into the natural world that has been pushed to the brink of extinction.
- Meanwhile, the red hall tells the conservation’s greatest success stories, but the animals in this hall are still the earth’s most vulnerable species that need protection.
The world is changing so fast that we don’t even have time to realise that our global neighbours are disappearing.
My Black Book is a pause, a way to stop running for a few minutes, to look around and to think: what kind of world are we going to leave to our children?
Perhaps this pause is necessary to feel the pain of loss, to realise how many animals are now on the brink of extinction, and to think about how to protect those that can still be saved.
Project purposes:
- We want to draw attention to the problem, to arouse initial interest, to resonate in the soul. To lay the groundwork for what will be heard and read on the subject.
- Our dream is to make a beautiful, emotional and memorable book. It will not advocate or demand anything.
- It will be not an encyclopaedia. Not only dry facts — but the stories that touch the heart.
Reading age: 10+
Dimensions: 290*200 mm
Print length: 80 pages
BLACK HALL
Meet the creatures that are gone forever.*
*Hopes of restoring the species using the genes that have been preserved are, frankly, not realistic. Even if it is possible to revive an animal «from the test tube», genetic diversity is needed to produce offspring and further propagate the species.
The contrast between the light graphics and the heavy content is a technique that underlines the delicacy and fragility of this world, its vulnerability and its defencelessness in the face of the super-predator that is man. There is no moralising, no appeals and no agitation in the book, its aim is to touch the deepest strings of our souls, to evoke a wide range of emotions: from acute pity to indignation, from pain to the desire to protect.
GREY HALL
On the brink: animals that are so few in number that they could disappear at any moment.*
*Any moment here is not a figure of speech. Today the animal is alive, tomorrow it could be on the blacklist.
RED HALL
Back from the brink but still vulnerable*
*The book tells the stories of animals, perfectly adapted to their natural habitat, that became completely extinct within a very short time of meeting humans.
LIST OF ANIMALS TO BE INCLUDED IN THE BOOK
*Depending on the size of the print edition, the list may be changed.
Layout sketch:
Book series:
The project could be continued with books on other rare and endangered species:
Rare animals
In our daily lives, we are not surrounded by wild animals, some of which we only hear about in frightening reports on the news.
Trapped on an island
The islands have the highest rates of species extinction in the historical period.
Black water
Water pollution threatens 90% of endangered freshwater fish and molluscs
The last inhabitants of the rainforest
The plight of tropical rainforests is the best known case of habitat destruction.
The last inhabitants of coral reefs
Reefs are home to a third of all known oceanic fish species, and up to 90 per cent of the world’s corals could die in the near future.
OUR TEAM
