RDLS was co-founded by Feral Theatre and The Life Cairn in 2011. It is supported by a range of organisations and practitioners. It has no legal structure and is volunteer-led. The project admin is mainly carried out by ONCA staff and volunteers in the UK and by Extinction Witness in the USA.
It has evolved with support from a range of organisations and practitioners including but not limited to:
- The Life Cairn, an international group that builds stone cairns as a focus for memorials to extinct species
- Extinction Witness founder, US-based poet Megan Hollingsworth
- Feral Theatre – make performance that explores loss, death and memory
- ONCA – UK art organisation that supports the wellbeing of people and places by increasing engagement with environmental and social challenges
- Bridget McKenzie founder of Everyday Ecocide
- Dark Mountain
- Joel Greenberg, author of A Feathered River Across the Sky and co-leader of Project Passenger Pigeon
- Radical Joy for Hard Times‘ Trebbe Johnson
- MEMO Project, an iconic architectural project to build a permanent memorial to extinct species on the Isle of Portland
- Sew the Seeds textile artist Sherrell Biggerstaff Cuneo
- Brandon Ballengee, US-based artist/biologist
- Zoomorphic magazine
- Errol Fuller, painter and author of The Great Auk, Dodo, Extinct Birds and Lost Animals
- Amphibian Foundation, a US-based non-profit organisation dedicated to addressing the global amphibian extinction crisis
- Buglife – the only organisation in Europe devoted to the conservation of all invertebrates
- Extinction Symbol – the circle signifies the planet, while the hourglass inside serves as a warning that time is rapidly running out for many species and cultures.
- Nigel Rayment
- Svenja Meyerricks
- The Booth Museum, Brighton