Dinosaurs, polar bears and elephants lit up amid rhinoceroses, tigers and panda-shaped lanterns at a light show in Paris’s Jardin des Plantes that aimed to draw attention to the world’s endangered species.
Paris sparkles with illuminations every holiday season, with installations in various locations around the city.
This year, the botanical garden, in the heart of Paris becomes home to the brightly coloured animal-shaped figures reaching up to 15 metres in height, installed by the China Light Festival, a subsidiary of Sichuan Tianyu Culture, known for giant lantern displays to celebrate Chinese New Year.
The tour starts with prehistoric dinosaurs, then shows the first species which became extinct due to the pressure of human civilization, such as mammoths and sabre-tooth tigers. It concludes with the diversity of today’s endangered species, including pandas, elephants and a 30-metre-long white shark.
The show’s organisers want to warn against the pressure of economic development on nature and the survival of rare species.
In recent months the impact of human existence has been shone in stark reality with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimating that the global population of vertebrate species has decreased by 60% in the last 40 years.