The black summer bushfires killed 3 billion animals. They are our relatives; they deserve to be mourned

‘We must sing the planet up’: Alexis Wright, whose new novel Praiseworthy is out now. She has written a speech for a vigil marking three years since the black summer bushfires. Photograph: Meredith O'Shea/The Guardian

Many times since the black summer fires came, and finally passed, I have thought about the enormity of what happened on vast areas of country, killing 3 billion animals and trillions of invertebrates. I thought, what can one human being say to this unimaginable loss, when I know in my heart that the human world did not do enough to prevent this disaster? A disaster brought on by the global warming emergency. A disaster that created colossal, unprecedented pyro-convective firestorms.

Do we even have the right to speak? Who should be speaking about this?