TRANSCRIPT
“When we are alive our children need to go back to Country. And if we don't have a place, where are we going? Where do my old people rest their souls?”
“Once you have that love embedded in you, you become a custodian. You become connected to place.”
Everyone, at some point or another, will lose someone or something they love.
And yet grief is still seen as a taboo, particularly in dominant western cultures.
So how do different cultures hold space for grief, and are some better equipped than others?
And how can we think about grief beyond the concept of death, looking at other profoundly life-changing forms of loss?
I'm Catriona Stirrat, and this is the fifth episode of 'Living Loss'.
In this episode, we explore the concept of ecological grief - the feelings of loss, despair and anger that coincide with environmental loss and damages, and which can lead to a range of complex responses.
This feeling might be one the western world is only coming to grips with in recent decades, but for First Nations peoples these feelings of loss have culminated in centuries of grief.
Dr Virginia Marshall is a proud Wiradjiri Nyemba woman and a research fellow with the School of Regulation and Global Governance at the Australian National University.
She's been active in the Indigenous Australian Native Title and water and human rights space for years.
But for Dr Marshall the terms environment or ecology fail to capture the deep relationship Indigenous Australians have with Country.
“Those words of ecological grief, it's far greater. The word ecology doesn't even begin to understand the relationship for Indigenous peoples of Australia. So that's a very important way to understand that the identity of every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person is melded with that sense of place. But it's those flowers and the trees and the funghi and everything that connects to your kinship has such an incredible relationship of self. For me, is much deeper than when you'd say ecological grief. It is grief, it's trauma.”
Dr Marshall explains how loss of country is therefore a far deeper grief, one that is intrinsically linked to identity for First Nations peoples.
“As Indigenous peoples of the oldest living cultural Indigenous group on the planet, this is even more intense for us, because we've had these tens of thousands of years of relationship with our environment, with every living thing. And that means what people might think as inanimate objects, everything has animus, everything that we understand. In other words, we don't have a word for nature in Wiradjiri. We always hear this word nature today as if nature formed itself, as if nature is something separate to Indigenous people of Australia, and it's not.”
Griefline counsellor Abi Catchlove acknowledges that while ecological grief might be a fairly new term in the therapeutic sense, Indigenous peoples have been experiencing a multifaceted form of loss for hundreds of years.
Dr Kriss Kevorkian is certainly one of the global pioneers of the concept, coining the term environmental grief in her 2004 PhD 'Environmental Grief: Hope and Healing'.
She defined it as the grief reaction stemming from the environmental loss of ecosystems caused by natural or man-made events.
Abi Catchlove explains how the term is applied in a therapeutic sense today.
“I'm very wary of talking about it like it's a new thing when it's not, and there's lots of complexity and nuance to it. But I guess a definition that can be used for ecological grief is the grief felt in relation to experienced or anticipated ecological losses. So this includes the loss of species or ecosystems and meaningful landscapes, due to acute or chronic environmental change.”
The grief is often compounded by a lack of language or understanding around the loss.
Ms Catchlove explains how ecological grief is a form of disenfranchised grief, something we explored in our last episode.
This is because the loss isn't often publicly or openly acknowledged, particularly when it comes to climate change policy and narratives.
“I guess if we're not talking about ecological grief but we're feeling it, but it's not kind of in the public sphere or in our knowledge of these patterns kind of emerging, we can kind of feel like we're not allowed to feel grief. You know, it might be confusing as to why we have such big emotions over it, but it's valid. All of these losses are very valid, and it speaks to this disenfranchisement of yeah almost not feeling allowed to feel it, or have the permission to feel it.”
This disenfranchised grief speaks to the feelings of neglect experienced by First Nations people when they are disconnected from country as a result of climate change and other enviornmental impacts.
Rikki Dank is a Gudanji Wakaja woman from Karanjini and Barkly Tablelands in the Northern Territory's town of Borroloola.
She describes the deep sense of loss from witnessing fracking, a technique for recovering gas and oil from rock, on her Borroloola Country.
“We can't survive without water, so it feels like it's almost like they're killing us. And they know they are doing it but they don't care. Because they don't care that our families are having to drink that poisoned water, because we have no access to any other water. So to know that there are other human beings not sad, not upset at the fact that there are people in our non-human kin who are going to have to drink that water to survive in the immediate future, that brings a whole other level of sadness as well.”
For First Nations Australians like Rikki, Country is more than a piece of land or environment, it's home and identity.
Rikki is emotional, describing the fear that grips her community, unsure about the future of their home.
“I think for me the other reason too why we're fighting so hard is because our old people need a place t go back to, our children need a place to go back to. So when we die we go back to that country. When we are alive our children need to go back to country. And if we don't have a place where are we going? Where do my old people rest their souls? They won't have a place. Where do my grandchildren grow up? They don't have a place. We are refugees in our own country, not by our own making, but by the making of greed, by people wanting to make money.”
This speaks to an anxiety which Ms Catchlove says is often referred to as anticipatory grief.
She explains how this feeling is prevalent among those supporting others with a terminal illness or dementia, where the grieving process is premature due to an awareness of a future loss.
“Anticipatory grief, that's the sense that the changes are continuing and I guess a likelihood of experiencing worsening of what we're already seeing. This can also be about the sadness of watching others around the world suffer environment-related trauma, and either knowing what the pain of that is like or having the empathy to kind o f understand what that loss would be. And this is a slow and cumulative grief without end. So unlike a human death for example, there's not necessarily one moment you can pinpoint, but there's a long and enduring anxiety that's underneath.”
But these feelings of despair and anger are also often channelled into action or climate activism.
Ms Catchlove says ecological grief is such a universal and collective sadness which can be harnessed in community responses.
“I know for me personally, if I'm feeling despair, an antidote for that, or a positive way to harness that anger is action, in dynamic or creative ways. So getting involved in really climate positive events, like tree planting or community gardens or environmental activism. And I don't say that to outline that we he to be doing things, rather than actually sitting and being with the grief, it's certainly not about being in denial or avoiding the stickyness of ecological grief, and just doing something to get over it. But I think by being proactive or connecting with people who are experiencing similar things, this is a really beautiful way to find solidarity.”
For conservationist Motria von Schreiber, environmental action has been a response to feelings of ecological grief for decades.
But these days, her action resembles a different form than traditional activism.
“In the 20s, I felt I could change the world. So I marched, and shook my fist, and wrote letters, and felt that we were actually making a difference in many ways, and in some ways we did. In recent years, where I live there's been a lot of activism against the fuel industry and lobbying, and they are all incredibly critical issues. But I've chosen to work more strategically in changing awareness in one on one conversations, actually waking people up in circles I move through, and trying to get dialogue going that this is your problem as well as everyone else's problem. And it's not going away. We have to find innovative ways of resolving the issues involved with every single problem.”
Motria was also subject to the Black Saturday bushfires in the Bega Valley in the 2019-2020 summer, where she continues to manage her husband's vet clinic.
Her and her husband were evacuated but set up feeding and water stations for animals alongside other volunteers.
The image of black smoke and animal carcasses still haunts Motria.
“And the first time I went out there, it was like being on the site of an atomic bomb blast. The silence was overwhelming, the blackness, just no life, not even in the soil. And there were carcasses everywhere facing the creeks, trying to run for their lives towards water and not making it. So in some kind of macabre way I ritually gathered the bones. I don't know what I was thinking but I felt like there had to be some acknowledgment that there was life here, and met a very desperate death.”
The term solastalgia, coined by Doctor of Philosophy Glenn Albrecht, is ideal for describing Motria's experience.
“Solastalgia is the lived experience of negative environmental change. I often summarise it as the lived experience of negative changes to your loved home environment, and it's a form of home sickness or melancholia. And I often describe that as, it's the home sickness or melancholia that you have when you're at home but your home environment is leaving you. So it's the opposite of traditionally-defined nostalgia, which is a feeling of home sickness when you're absent from home and wish to return.”
The term has been reflected in art, essays and articles, to describe the distress and grief people feel when they witness their home environment slipping away from them.
Dr Albrecht says solastalgia sits on a spectrum of experiences and emotions, which he describes as the psycho-terratic typology, where psycho refers to the mind and terratic meaning of the earth.
As our climate crisis worsens, and Australia potentially confronts another bushfire season, Dr Albrecht says unfortunately the term is becoming increasingly relevant.
“It's also worth noting that the 'algia' in solastalgia is not just referring to pain and particularly medically-defined pain. 'Algia' also means sorrow, it also can be translated as a form of grief. So using the word 'algia', as a philosopher I implied a range of strong feelings and emotions that people feel, when a loved home environment, a place that is tied to a person's identity and sense of self, begins to fall apart, or is visibly torn apart by forces beyond their control.”
But to know pain, is to also know love for place, as Dr Albrecht describes.
“When you define the negative end of the psycho-terratic spectrum, you're also comparing and contrasting it to an opposite positive emotion. For example, topophilia, the concept developed by the geographer Tuan in the 1970s. So topophilia means love of place - topo means place, philia means love of. So if solastalgia is possible, you can only experience it if you also have topophilia for the place that you live.”
This speaks to Motria's ritual gathering of bones alongside her volunteering efforts during the bushfires.
“The fact that we were delivering small pockets of suitable fruit and vegetables and hoping some would come and eat that, and water stations, and grain, eventually we began to notice footprints. And the first bat was exciting, and then the lizards, and then one echidna and the sound of a parrot. And bit by bit nature began to re-balance itself. So being in a ritual of service to this one place, and being able to observe not just the horror but the glimmers of regeneration, kept us strong.”
Motria's ecological grief unfortunately extends beyond Australia.
Her Ukrainian background has meant Motria has mourned the devastating effects of the war in Ukraine - both the tragic loss of people and the natural environment.
“This war erupted and it was as if all the grief of my ancestors arrived back within me. It was a complete earthquake-like experience. And again, turning to activism, and how can I be of service to the refugees that were flowing into Australia, to my family, to the people that are still there attending to all the injuries and grief that's pouring from all directions in Ukraine. And there was very little coverage of ecological disasters that were taking place. So when I started to see footage of dead marine life washed ashore from the Black Sea, and nest sites decimated, entire forests razed and bombed to oblivion. That's very hard to witness but that's actually true of all wars. It's like carrying a huge backpack of sorrow and finding the strength of my lineage to keep carrying it.”
For Rikki, her anger and rage is a fuel for activism.
She attended COP26 in November 2021, and was furious upon witnessing representatives of Australian oil and gas exploration company Santos, which have undertaken drilling and exploration projects in the Northern Territory.
Rikki's anger about the presence of the gas company at the global environment summit drove her to fight against them, employing legal and financial avenues that she says would hurt the company most.
“I guess it just, grief is funny when it turns into rage, because it turns into fuel for me. And it absolutely drives me to the point where I think, 'right, I'm going to get you, and I'm going to get you the best way I know how'. And I'm going to work so hard that, I'm going to make sure we can find a team of lawyers that are going to sue you and take all your money. Because that's what important to you, people's lives are important to you. It's money that's important to you.”
This drive is only one example of how Rikki responds to her anger and grief around environmental destruction.
She's also passionate about connecting others with Country, through her family-run organisation 'Gudanji for Country', describing a recent experience of immersing people from different climate organisations in Country.
We needed them to see how we interacted with Country, and how Country interacts with us. And that it was important for them to understand, or start to learn to understand, the relationship we have with Country. You know, we need our Country to survive and be healthy, and then our Country needs us. And I thought if we did this, if we taught people this, then them themselves would develop and build a relationship with Country. And then when you've got more people loving Country, learning about Country, they're willing to fight for it as well, like we are.”
As a conservationist who promotes the healing power of nature, Motria also finds this immersion to be a tool for navigating environmental grief.
Since her teens she has facilitated outdoor adventure camps, wilderness experiences and bush kinders, as well as re-wilding and connection work.
“Once you have that love embedded in you, you become a custodian, you become connected to place. So yeah I often encourage people to find that spot, to make a commitment to it, and see what happens. You don't have to do anything, you just have to breathe and still yourself, and enjoy. You can develop that relationship in a park, or from an office looking out at a bird behaviour or flock behaviour, or the way cloud formations and water is transported in the sky. Everything involved in wild nature is of incredible value to us.”
In our next episode, we will explore the aspects of an individual's culture that might be more challenging to navigate following a loss, and the ways culture intersects with personal ways of grieving.
