What Is Ecological Grief

What Is Ecological Grief?
Responses to climate change show the connection between

place and identity.
Posted October 18, 2024 | Reviewed by Tyler Woods
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THE BASICS
 Find a therapist near me who can help with anxiety.

KEY POINTS
 Climate change has important mental health consequences, which

psychologists are only beginning to untangle.
 Ecological grief is felt in response to ecological losses, ranging from
species to meaningful landscapes.
 Ecological grief is a form of disenfranchised grief, which is not openly
acknowledged or socially supported.
 Ecological grief reveals how people’s identities and life structures are
rooted in place.
You probably remember how in early 2020 wild bushfires raged throughout
Australia. Reminiscing about bushwalking in her youth in the Yuin nation, the
journalist Lorena Allam described the horror of seeing it all go up in smoke:
“For First Nations people it is also burning up our memories, our sacred
places, all the things which make us who we are. It's a particular grief to lose
forever what connects you to a place in the landscape.”
Environmental destruction is rife. We hear with increasing frequency about the

ravages of hurricanes, floods and wildfires, and many communities are
affected by the slower but chronic effects of drought or melting sea ice. In all
this destruction, there is a direct loss of lives, and of livelihoods, but climate
change also has important mental health consequences, which clinical
psychologists are only beginning to untangle. Among these consequences,
one that is intimately tied to environmental loss is ecological grief.
In a landmark review, Ashlee Cunsolo and Neville Ellis define ecological grief
as grief felt in response to ecological losses. Existing studies have
investigated ecological grief in contexts such as melting sea ice in the Arctic,
warming temperatures in northeastern Siberia, long-term drought in the
Australian Wheatbelt, or deforestation in rural Ghana.
But what is ecological grief? While the term ecological grief might strike you
as an odd choice of words (for many, grief is usually reserved to the loss of a
loved person), there is a renewed focus in psychology on grief over non-death
losses, such as breakup, illness, pregnancy loss or the loss of one’s pet.
Grief over non-death losses is often “disenfranchised,” meaning that it is not

openly acknowledged or socially supported, but it is grief nonetheless, and the
disenfranchisement further compounds the difficulty of navigating
the emotion. Of course, extending the scope of grief makes defining it even
more challenging, because it raises the question of what is the common
denominator that unites all these forms of grief.
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Philosophers Matthew Ratcliffe and Louise Richardson argue that we can

understand non-death losses if we define grief not as the loss of a person but
as the loss of “life possibilities.” The idea is that the structure of our lives is a
coherently organized arrangement of significant possibilities, such as our
routines, expectations, projects, or pastimes.
Our loved ones are integral to our life structure. So, when a loved one dies,
our grief is the emotional process of grasping the implications of the loss to
the structure. However, not only our loved ones, but also our projects, our
jobs, or our pets can be integral to the structure of our lives in different ways,
and when we lose them, we undergo grief.
What ecological grief shows is that place can be equally integral to the
structure of our lives. Jeff Malpas, one of the key thinkers about the nature of
place, argues that the structure of our lives, our sense of identity, is
inextricably tied to the places “in and through which our lives are worked out –
which means that we cannot understand ourselves independently of the
places in which our lives unfold even though those places may be complex
and multiple”.
In Lament for the Land, a community co-produced film about the impacts of
climate change, Tony Andersen, the mayor of the Nain community in
Labrador, is quite explicit in drawing the link between place and identity as a
central theme underlying ecological grief: “Inuit are people of the sea ice. If
there is no more sea ice, how can we be people of the sea ice?” The places
where we dwell structure our life possibilities, using Ratcliffe and Richardson’s
term. When the sea ice melts too early, river crossings, outdoor activities,
hunting, and festivals are all disrupted.
With the loss of these life possibilities, one’s very identity is in crisis. This is a
recurrent element for people suffering from ecological grief. Discussing the
impact of deforestation in Ghana, one farmer laments how the “hunting for
bovines was who we are, but that's no more. Whether we overhunted them or
the land became toxic for them [referring to bush burning and increased
pesticide use], we don't know”.
Similarly, a victim of a wildfire in Australia explains that it “totally changed

everything about our place, not just the inside, not just the house, not just our
stuff, but all our history.” Our identity is intertwined with our community and
projects, and these are rooted in place, so when the places we inhabit are
eroded, our very identities are disrupted.
Ecological grief shows how the very possibilities that we normally experience
are rooted in place and disrupted in the aftermath of environmental loss. The
people most affected are those living at the frontlines of climate change,
whose voices are often ignored. Understanding that ecological grief is both a
genuine form of grief and a legitimate response to environmental loss is a
necessary step to avoid disenfranchising those who suffer from it. But it is only
a first step, and much more needs to be done to understand this particular
grief, to learn how to cope with it, and, most importantly, to mobilise society to
tackle its root causes.
References
Amoak, D., Kwao, B., Ishola, T. O., & Mohammed, K. (2023). Climate change induced
ecological grief among smallholder farmers in semi-arid Ghana. SN Social Sciences, 3(8),
131.
Cunsolo, A., & Ellis, N. R. (2018). Ecological grief as a mental health response to climate
change-related loss. Nature Climate Change, 8(4), 275-281.
Fernandez Velasco, P. (2024). Ecological grief as a crisis in dwelling. European Journal of

Philosophy.
Malpas, J. (2013). Rethinking dwelling: Heidegger and the question of place. Enigma: He
Aupiki.
Proudley, M. (2013). Place matters. Australian Journal of Emergency Management,

The, 28(2), 11-16.
Ratcliffe, M. J., & Richardson, L. F. (2023). Grief over non-death losses: A

phenomenological perspective. Passion: Journal of the European Philosophical Society for
the Study of Emotions.

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What Is Ecological Grief?

Responses to climate change show the connection between

 Find a therapist near me who can help with anxiety.

 Climate change has important mental health consequences, which

Environmental destruction is rife. We hear with increasing frequency about the

Grief over non-death losses is often “disenfranchised,” meaning that it is not

ARTICLE CONTINUES AFTER ADVERTISEMENT

Philosophers Matthew Ratcliffe and Louise Richardson argue that we can

Similarly, a victim of a wildfire in Australia explains that it “totally changed

Fernandez Velasco, P. (2024). Ecological grief as a crisis in dwelling. European Journal of

Proudley, M. (2013). Place matters. Australian Journal of Emergency Management,

Ratcliffe, M. J., & Richardson, L. F. (2023). Grief over non-death losses: A

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