The Silent Why: finding hope in grief and loss

Let's Chat... Environmental and Ecological Grief (with Dr Kriss Kevorkian)

July 26, 2022 Claire Sandys, Kriss Kevorkian Episode 42
The Silent Why: finding hope in grief and loss
Let's Chat... Environmental and Ecological Grief (with Dr Kriss Kevorkian)
Show Notes Transcript

#042. Did you know you can feel 'environmental or ecological grief'? Find out more in this episode about what it is and who is feeling it.

Welcome to Let’s Chat… These episodes pop-up occasionally instead of one of our 101 different losses, as I (Claire Sandys, one of the co-hosts of The Silent Why podcast) chat to a guest who has experience or expertise in a particular area that can help us deal with, or prepare for, loss.

In this Let’s Chat… we hear from Dr Kriss Kevorkian about Environmental and Ecological Grief.

And I'm building a toolkit, well actually a whole tool shed, of equipment to help us face loss. So I'm very keen to see what each guest adds to my new shed. 

Kriss lives in beautiful Gig Harbour, Washington, and holds a doctoral degree in Thanatology and a Masters in Social Work, but she also specialises in Eco/Climate Thanatology.

Kriss is an expert in grief, death and dying and has worked hard to become a leading authority on environmental and ecological grief. She is no stranger to loss and grief in her personal life, and since seeing them on a seventh grade field trip, has a great passion for whales which has led her to study and research the decline of the Southern Resident Orcas in the Salish Sea.

We chat grief, nature, whales, how we can all do our bit, why it’s important and lots more.

For those who haven't heard of the Salish Sea,  it's an inland sea of the Pacific Ocean located in British Columbia, Canada. It's 440 kilometres (270 miles) long, contains more than 400 islands, has a very active marine ecosystem, diverse community of kelp species, glass sponge reefs, 253 fish species and 172 bird species.

To find out more about Kriss visit: https://drkkevorkian.com

Or for the other organisations she mentioned:
Rights to Nature: https://legalrightsforthesalishsea.org
Earth law centre: https://www.earthlawcenter.org/
The Global alliance for the rights of nature: https://www.garn.org/
Movement rights: https://www.movementrights.org/

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Thank you for listening.

Claire:

Hello there, and welcome to another episode of Let's chat... I'm Claire Sandys, co-host of The Silent Why podcast and blog writer for www.thesilentwhy.com. In these episodes, I chat to a guest who has experience or expertise in a particular area that can help us either deal with, prepare for, or was linked with loss or grief. And sometimes there are episodes that teach us about an area of grief we might not have even thought about before or even knew existed, like our subject in this episode. Today, I'm chatting to Dr. Kriss Kevorkian from Gig Harbour in Washington, who holds a doctoral degree in Thanatology and a Master's in Social Work, but she also specialises in Eco and Climate Thanatology. Chris is an expert in grief, death, dying and has worked hard to become a leading authority on environmental and ecological grief. She's no stranger to loss and grief in her personal life, and since seeing them on a seventh grade field trip has a great passion for whales (the animal not the country), which has led her to study and research the decline of the Southern Resident Orcas. So grab a cup of tea or coffee, maybe an elderflower cordial, if it's sunny where you are, and relax with me and Kriss, as we chat environmental grief.

Kriss:

My name is Kriss Kevorkian, and I am a Thanatologist and I specialise in Biocentric Thanatology. Looking at the whole, looking at nature, including nature and all living beings in this field, and I have my own business called The Grieving World where I intuitively help people, and compassionately help people, as they're grieving and at the end of life, helping patients and their families dealing with the end of life. And I'm also founder of Legal Rights for the Salish Sea, where we are working to educate our communities, and elected officials to recognise the inherent rights of the Southern Resident Orca in the Salish Sea.

Claire:

So quite a varied workload there. Why don't you just start by telling us a bit about what that big T word means? Because Thanatology, if I pronounced it right, was a whole new subject to me, I've never come across that before. So just explain a little bit about what that is, and maybe how you got into it.

Kriss:

So Thanatology is a study or science of death, dying and grief. And in fact, a lot of people in the field of end of life care and others don't know that there's actually a term called Thanatology. I got into this because I worked in hospice for many years, and wanted to help educate physicians and people in the medical field, more about end of life care and how to communicate with people at the end of life. In my hospice work, I found that people were really struggling with that. I was a hospice medical social worker. And there were times when I would go to see a patient, admit them to hospice services, and they had no idea that they were terminally ill or that they needed hospice obviously. And it was a huge struggle for me and frustration that the physicians didn't communicate well with their patients. And this was only about a handful of physicians and so I thought I wanted to pursue a doctoral degree in Thanatology to teach medical students how to communicate better with their patients. Unfortunately, at the time, Dr. Jack Kevorkian physician assisted suicide doctor was busy in the US helping people die with dignity. And people in the medical field were not very keen on on what he was doing, and assumed that we were related. It was a bit of a struggle at times, even getting jobs or, and I made sure that none of my patients knew my last name. It's just it's challenging. I recognise the difficulties that physicians have in communicating news to patients, but we have to do a better job of it. So I pursued a doctoral degree with that intention of teaching medical students but then ended up being challenged by a professor to contribute something new to the field of Thanatology. And I had studied whales pretty much all my life before I got into hospice work, and went back to them just said, 'forget it, I'm going to go back and study whales'. And in doing so, I ended up coining the term'Environmental Grief' as well as'Ecological Grief' because I then focused my research and Thanatology on the decline of the Southern Resident Orca in the Salish Sea.

Claire:

So you had this background and Thanatology and then you started looking at environmental grief. What is the difference between environmental grief and ecological grief?

Kriss:

So environmental grief is a grief reaction stemming from the environmental loss of ecosystems caused by natural or human made events. It looks more at general look at species seas and ecosystems, its larger. Ecological grief was different in the fact that it's the grief reaction stemming from the disconnection and relational loss from our natural world. So that to me means that it's a struggle for those of us looking at nature and respecting and appreciating nature while other people don't. They'll just barrel over her. When I'm teaching a class on this or lecturing, I often show a photo of a dolphin, a baby dolphin that's been held up by humans and swarms of people surrounding this poor baby dolphins, people are taking selfies, not recognising the fact that they've basically murdered this dolphin because they took the dolphin out of the water holding up, traumatising this baby. I mean, imagine if this were a human baby, how we be completely incensed, we'd be just, you know, wanting to imprison these people for traumatising and basically kidnapping this child. And that's what they've done to this dolphin. And to me, that's just a clear image of ecological grief that there's just complete relational loss to nature.

Claire:

And as far as you see, what is the relationship between the two? Is one more of a concern than the other? Do they just intermingle?

Kriss:

I think they intermingle. I think there's a lot of overlap, because I think for those of us who are very environmentally conscious, and our have been environmental activists, or even people who are new to environmental activism, will start recognising these issues. And it's hard not to, I mean, given climate change is at everybody's front door pounding, saying that, you know, work here, this is happening, it's not something that's happening in other areas, climate change is affecting everyone in every part of the world, we just might not be aware of it, but it's happening. And I think, for me, in particular, I've been a whale lover and an environmental activist pretty much all my life. And it just, it's getting old. I think there's a lot of concern about the grief that we're feeling the overwhelming sense of grief when it comes to the environmental issues, compounded by everything that's happening around the world, war, pandemic. In the U.S. There's just so much environmental injustice and social injustice that, that we're fighting that it's getting to be a huge struggle for a lot of us and I'm just concerned about people burning out, and the compassion fatigue that people are getting, and I see it with the people that I work with. It's, it's a lot.

Claire:

What's the hardest thing about working in an area like this where it is so much bigger than just one person, one cause, one situation?

Kriss:

For me, it was really pretty lonely because when I came up with these terms, even my doctoral committee said, 'you know, you're the only one who's going to be feeling this way'. And I thought, 'well, surely not. There's gotta be somebody else feeling the same way'. And if they are, then I'm going to, you know, hopefully help that one person. But as it turned out, in recent years, a lot of people have been talking about these issues, although they're using different terms, it's the same issue pretty much. What sort of things give you like going the opposite way give you joy in working in this area, or give you hope? The Rights of Nature Movement has really given me a lot of hope. Because it's looking at nature as family, it's looking to give nature rights. It's changed my view on nature. And it goes back very much to an indigenous viewpoint, of seeing nature as kin, as family. And I love being within this movement, being with people who care so genuinely and authentically about nature, and not looking at nature as a commodity, as a property, as entertainment. It's looking at nature as kin.

Claire:

Yeah. And there'll be a new take on it I imagine for a lot of people seeing it nature as part of us and as family. What are other reasons that people who've maybe never even thought about this should think about things like loss and grief in the ecological and environmental world?

Kriss:

You know, I would hope that people would be thinking about this now, especially during the pandemic, what fascinated me so much about the pandemic. I mean, there's so many things when I mean, it was horrible, the losses that we've incurred, but the fact that once we went into lockdown, how quickly nature was able to come back. You know, the air quality in so many places, was fabulous within three days, animals were roaming the streets, dolphins were swimming in the canals of Venice. It was just pretty remarkable to see how quickly nature can bounce back. But on the flip side, it was also important to see how people were recognising the importance of nature. And everyone was saying,'Oh my God, you've got to just go for a walk be out in nature'. And we're always saying that in psychology, we're always encouraging people to be out in nature. It helps, it fuels our mental health. And to me, it's just, that's great, but what are you giving back to nature?

Claire:

I think maybe people get put off because it feels like such a big subject sometimes. So although it's important, and we can be encouraged to put an extra plant out little things that might help the bees and small areas like that. And I think maybe it doesn't feel enough, it feels like well, this isn't going to help the overall kind of climate change and dolphins in the canals in Venice and things. Is there ways that you can encourage people that it's worth doing your bit, no matter how small you can offer?

Kriss:

Yeah, because there's so much we can be doing. I mean, it's just lessening our impact on the planet. It's consider what you're buying. That's, I think one of the hardest things to do, though, it's so easy to just buy what we want. But let's think about what happens when we no longer want this product. How do we dispose of it? Is it recyclable? Or is it going to end up in a landfill? Are we contributing to the problem? Or are we doing something to prevent it?

Claire:

Have you found that knowing about these kinds of griefs and things in the environment in general have helped you in other ways with like, maybe personal losses or other grief in other areas?

Kriss:

Yeah, I think in this might sound funny, but one of the things that I learned in, in hospice, and I've been doing this for almost 30 years now. And I learned this from one of my first patients of just, he was a 50 year old man, and he and his wife had worked every day of their lives practically because they wanted to retire at 50 and travel the world. And of course, when he went to the doctor for all the shots and just being prepared, he was told he had cancer, and he had a few months to live. And he told me, really, 'you have got to do everything in the moment, you've got to live to the fullest'. And so I came up with this mantra with him of - 'If I were to die in a month, what I want to be doing what I'm doing today?' and so that pushes me a lot and at night, I'll think about what I've done during the day and think yeah, I don't know if if I really want to do that again. Obviously, there are times when you know, for jobs or something, I have to do something to make a living. But it also pushes me to live more fully and enjoy each and every moment. I see myself walking with death on one hand and grief on the other, always pushing me to just be in the moment and, and live and appreciate everything I have.

Claire:

Was that something or part of the reason why you ended up sort of going back to your your love of orcas and working in that kind of area?

Kriss:

I think so. It's really kind of fascinating, as I so appreciate having the time of getting older and, and looking back and connecting all the dots, as I say, and just seeing with all the challenges that have come my way, learning that things don't happen to me, but they happen for me, because they've made me who I am. Not that I would ever really want a lot of people to go through some of the things I've gone through or or what they've gone through, but it it always fascinates me to see how people can persevere and maintain such a level of strength to move forward through whatever adversity comes their way on their path. And they're able to learn from it and grow from it. And I think grief is something that if we're able to see grief as a teacher, I think that helps all of us, and I view death and grief as masters, always pushing me to, to learn more and to just be grateful. In any situation there's always a level of gratitude, whether people recognise it or not. And I don't want to sound you know, like I'm discounting or dismissing what others have gone through, because a lot of people have gone through hell, especially during the pandemic. But, you know, there was one patient I had who worked pretty much every day of the week for years, and she loved her job., but she was one of those people who actually said, you know, it took cancer for her to stop and smell the roses. She just never appreciated her garden or anything, and once she finally had to stop working, and was at home, she started recognising just how beautiful everything was around her. And she never saw anything before. She was just so busy. And so I think even if we're not able to have nature surrounding us as it were, there's always things that we could be grateful for, and we can always find nature. She's everywhere she's in us, I mean every cell is nature within us. So just appreciating our bodies appreciating fingernails, hair, everything. That's it's all nature. ]

Claire:

Yeah, we've had podcast guests before talk about how grief crystallises the beauty and the good. And it made me think about in 2018, which is a situation you'll be very familiar with, there was the famous orca on the TV, the mother carrying around her dead calf for over a couple of weeks. And I think that seemed to give out a very poignant message that I think lots of people got different things from. Do you think that connected with people because of that grief aspect to it?

Kriss:

Yeah, I think Tahlequah is one of the reasons why we we sort of changed our name is Legal Rights for the Salish Sea. And when we first started in 2016-2017 we were focusing on the Salish Sea, because in my mind, I was saying, you know, as long as the sea is healthy, then the orcas will have a habitat that is healthy. And then when Tahlequah lost her calf, and went on what people called her Tour of Grief for 17 days carrying her calf, pushing the calf to the surface, people around the world are contacting us and saying you've got to save the Orca. And I think people recognise that because grief is universal. How we cope with it is far different culturally. But the grief itself is universal. And I do my best to, to bring that to people's attention, especially in Rights of Nature. I'm so fortunate because the people I work with are wonderful lawyers, and Michelle Bender, who was our ocean Rights Campaign Director at Earth Law Centre, who's working with us. She's just amazing. But I keep bringing in the emotional components, the grief components, because I think that is what can help us connect more to one another, and then also to nature. There's so much trauma and grief that's going on, that we need to recognise. And not just in nature, but also within ourselves. And I think that it tears apart any disconnection that we have with nature. And I think Tahlequah was an ambassador of that for all of us recognising that, you know, Tahlequah's a mammal, we're mammals. This is happening. Grief is something that everybody feels no matter what the species. So let's, let's connect and let's support and love one another. And do all we can to stop all this, I mean, for the Southern Resident Orca to to reproduce, it's very challenging, because there's so many toxins that they're living in, within the Salish Sea. And there's just so many struggles, and at times I look at them, and I just wonder how, how are you possibly surviving at all?

Claire:

How are they doing? What are the numbers like with the Southern Resident Orcas?

Kriss:

So the numbers aren't that great. Yeah, we're not sure they're gonna survive. The worst part is that they're starving, their preferred food choice and Chinook salmon and Chinook salmon are as endangered as they are. And instead of doing something that people are, are just tiptoeing around the issue, we need to get them more salmon. And in order to do that, we need to breach the lower force Snake River dams. And there's been a discussion about this for decades and it just keeps getting pushed down, you know, just kicking the can down the road. We understand now science has said you need to breach the dams. But now they're just talking about well, it's too expensive, or how do we replace the power blah, blah, blah, and that's all it is, blah, blah, blah, we have all the answers, the scientists know what to do. I'm fortunate to work with the people who know what to do, they're just not being asked. And so we're doing our best to put pressure on President Biden to take the lead. But it's it's a challenge. I would, you know, if we had celebrities or somebody just saying 'breach the frickin dams already!' I think we would have more hope. But it's been a struggle and and I sit back and I see these people weekly during our zoom meetings. And, and I'm so so grateful to all of these experts I get to be with who have been doing this work for decades and all I want to do is just support them as best I can with what skills I have. But I know that so many people, like I said, it's getting to a point where people really are burning out and people are getting older in this field, and they're the people with all the stories with all the information and I'm so concerned about what's going to happen when they're gone. Who's going to carry all that information?

Claire:

I guess political decisions have a massive impact on environmental stuff?

Kriss:

Yeah. And on everything in the US is not doing very well, when it comes to voting, you know, people will just vote for a candidate who says one thing that they agree with, not considering all the other issues that that one candidate has power over. So oftentimes, people in this country are voting against their own interests, which is very sad. Sorry, there's just a lot happening here.

Claire:

I mean, it's a huge topic. I think I can see why, you know, it's so important to open the subjects up more. And I think, like you said, unfortunately, it only gets people's attention, you know, your average person who's not involved in any of these areas, when something bad happens, or something really good happens, which seems pretty rare nowadays. But like when they see grief, or like you said, when somebody with a bit of clout gets up and starts talking about a particular animal that's, that's in danger other than that, it's seems to be something people can feel that they can close the door on. I'd like to think it was changing a bit and it's starting to impact people more, so maybe they're taking more notice. Have you seen that getting better over the years, or worse?

Kriss:

I see it getting better. I see, you know what, I'm really grateful for all the young people who are getting involved. I just wish that the powers that be considered young people more and considered generations, instead of just, you know, one generation behind us. You know, with the damn situation I've just never understood how it is that that people think it's okay

Claire:

Do you think there's any part for zoos to play in to destroy nature, for profit, or, for that matter, for for using nature as entertainment and making money off of nature. We're struggling with Tokitae, Lolita, who is at the Miami Seaquarium who's a Southern Resident, who was captured when she was six years old, traumatised kidnapped taken to the Miami Seaquarium, and we want her back, she should be with her family, she should not be stuck in a tiny tank, and she was forced to entertain people for years. Thankfully, we're told she's no longer having to entertain people, but we want her back. And it's just, it's so insane to me to think about how, you know, we thought it was okay to to capture animals, and just here we're, we're taking your child and forcing this child to entertain us. We had a show called The Twilight Zone with Rod Serling. And there was an episode from the 1960s that I remember seeing on repeats, where an actor Roddy McDowell, and another actor were astronauts, and they go on this mission to Mars. And they sort of crashed land. And so the other man dies. And Roddy McDowell never really wanted to go on this mission, but he's there. He's concerned. He's not sure how people are going to respond. They welcome him, he feels safe. He's taken into what he considers a home. It's very much like what he'd find on on Earth. And so he's feeling pretty safe. You know, this woman is loving upon him, and he's feeling good. And he realises one day, he's in his home, and he's opening a window or attempting to do so in a won't open. And then he opens up the drapes, and he sees these people looking in on him. And the caption reads something like'Earth creature in his natural habitat', or something like that. And to me that was so profound, that I remember every conservation? time I had to go to the zoo for a field trip or something, I

Kriss:

Zoos are wonderful, but they don't have to house the just would imagine that episode and just think we've just stolen an animal from their family from their home and placed them in this fake home where we're gawking. You know, we're like animals. I did research on this during my doctoral studies, voyeurs looking in and just watching. It's just so wrong, but that's what we do. And I hope someday soon we're all where they found that zoos and aquariums could actually just going to recognise just how wrong that is and stop capturing stop breeding wild animals. have virtual zoos, that people don't often go there to learn so much about the animals they can do that virtually. They go for all the other park related things, the food, the rides, if there are any rides, or things like that, but they don't learn that much about the animals as the zoos and aquariums would would suggest. And I remember in one research, they were spending, you know, gazillions of dollars on marketing and next nothing on habitat restoration, or creating proper habitats for the animals.

Claire:

Yeah, it's a difficult one. I think over here, we've we've got a lot of zoos, I would say mostly on the better side of zoos, because we've got a lot of regulations. And you know, on one level, you think, with our limited wildlife in this country, and a lot of ways you'd never ever see any of the animals, they weren't there. So there's that attraction of what I ever see even a raccoon, which I think is probably a bit of a different thing in America., but over here, it's like, 'Oh, my word, look the raccoon'. So it's very easy to get torn. It's a hard one to be very anti, if you love animals, and you want to see them, but you would never see them in your lifetime otherwise, it's lovely to see something else other than, you know, the Blackbirds and things we have around here. Who would you think to talk about like, obviously, this environmental grief and a lot of the grief we look at and specialise in with people is is human felt grief. So that particular human has gone through something and they're feeling the impact of what they've lost very heavily, and they're going through, and it takes different amounts of time to get through it, and it impacts people in different ways, and it's different sizes. Who do you think is feeling this grief? When it's environmental? When it's ecological? Who's feeling that grief the most?

Kriss:

Right now? Me. I think a lot of people are, I think, because the the whole thing about grief, the whole concept is that we've pushed it so much about, you know, losing a loved one, to death when when grief, there's so much non-death related grief. And I don't think we talked about those things enough. And, but when it comes to environmental grief and ecological grief, I think anybody aware of what's happening in our world, especially with climate change would be experiencing this.

Claire:

So if people are asking you, or there's people out there just like, well, I get it, but I don't know if it's applicable to me, how would you encourage people to think about it more, and just show them how it will impact them?

Kriss:

I would basically share my story with them. And then if it resonates fine, and if not, that's fine, too. I mean, the thing about grief is that it all barrels down to basically relationships. Because if we lose a relationship with whatever it could be, then we're going to be grieving, right? So it can be losing a relationship with a tree losing a relationship with a dear friend, losing a loved one. It's it's the relationship and that that's something that I think a lot of people miss, for some reason or another. I'm not quite sure why. But I remember when I was, when my dog died a couple years ago, and, and I was trying to explain to some psychologists about the grief that I had. And they're just like, 'Yeah, I've never experienced that with a dog, you know, they're just my dog'. And, and I tried to explain that'first of all, it's not about you, whether you experienced that or not, it's what I'm feeling'. And we should never discount the relationship. So while, somebody might be grieving the loss of a car, you know, I'm not going to discount that or dismiss that, it's that person is grieving the loss of a car, that car could have had so much sentimental value, or just whatever value they had put in that car. That's their relationship. So, support that grief.

Claire:

Now, it's so important, I think it's partly the same sort of message we want to put out on on The Silent Why through the 101 different losses. We're trying to show that, like you said, it's not just about bereavement, it's not just attached to human life, grief, grief is grief, and where you've placed your love in something, you'll grieve it. One thing be be nice to, to ask you is, you know, how can people play their part? So if people are listening, and they just think, yes, this is something I need to be more involved in, or I want to do my bit where I am, what would you encourage people to do to get involved?

Kriss:

I would really encourage people to get involved in the Rights of Nature movement. It's an uphill battle, to say the least, because most politicians aren't really interested in nature so much and giving nature rights per se. It's weird in the US, we give rights of personhood to corporations and to ships, but we feel that nature should have rights, and especially after the pandemic, nature should have the, you know, should be at the head of the table and all decision making and policymaking. And yet, it's still very frustrating that we don't consider nature as much and when we do it's from an anthropocentric point of view. You know, it's all human based, and management, you know, just the language we use in this country. It's 'land management', instead of you know, we should be looking to see what does land need from us or 'sustainability' that's that's a word that's always frustrated me because, we tend to use it thinking but we're looking at nature as being sustainable to us instead of the other way around.

Claire:

Is that something people can get involved in from anywhere in the world?

Kriss:

Yes, yes, there are several programmes there's Earth Law Centre, Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, Movement

Claire:

Brilliant. I've been telling through my blog about Rights, a lot of programmes Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature is all over. And they're just wonderful. And again, it's, it's a different way of looking at nature and life itself. It's just, it's connecting all of us. And, you know, and for me, I see how I've evolved as being in this in this movement. I was never a fan of spiders before. Never. And since being in this movement, I had a spider that just kept hanging around in and I could never get to the spider. And I just our endeavours with hedgehogs in the garden. But you've you've thought, 'okay, look, this is how it's gonna be, we're gonna be roommates. I've told you before, I really am not keen on having you here. But if you're gonna be here, just, you know, stay in that spot. Don't come too close. And we'll be fine'. And so I mean, the spider Wilbur, and it was the weirdest thing, though, because every time I would go in to that room, Wilbur would be where he was the night before. And he'd be gone during the day and then show up at night. And I just thought,'Okay, this is how it's gonna be'. And anytime I see a spider, who isn't Wilbur, I let them know, you know, you're not really supposed to be here, and I take them outside. And years ago, I would just kill them. But now it's just 'Nope, you're part of the family. But I really don't want you in the house. Please hang out outside with the rest of the family.' trumped me with what you've got in your garden, just tell people what you've got coming in.

Kriss:

Well, it's just, as we talked before, I'm I'm just excited and sad. Because I've got a beautiful black bear that that's been showing up. And it's so exciting to be in my home, not having to go to a national park or someplace and being able to see a beautiful black bear. But Baloo is I just feel sorry for Baloo, because we've encroached so much on his territory, that where's he gonna go? And I'm surrounded by trees. I'm very fortunate where I live there are deer, there are coyotes, there's raccoons, I've got everybody coming here and not coming here, but living here with me, this is their space, I'm just the caretaker here. But this morning, I got up and looked out and Baloo was there and Baloo had ripped off the sewage feeder for the birds, and then tore down my fence and tore off the bird feeder for the bird seed. And so while it was wonderful to see Baloo, now having to clean up after him. But again, it's to me, it's but this is his land, you know it, I can't get upset with him, and I'm not going to harm him in any way. I just would appreciate him not breaking stuff, but he's looking for food. And that's what bears do. There isn't a lot of space now for Baloo to roam. Because there are so many houses here. And when I lived in LA, we'd see coyotes and deer and and they were stuck in a very small area because there were too many houses built around them. And that's happening all over the world. And I wish you know, I love where I live, but I feel very guilty, I think this is one of the issues that some of us have is that in existing, you know, just in our existence, were contributing to destroying nature.

Claire:

Well, you do make me feel better about my hedgehogs that just flattened the small plants. I'm living with a lot less kind of damage than you are in your garden before my last question. What is your hope for the future in this area?

Kriss:

I hope that people will recognise the Rights of Nature that people will connect more with nature as as seeing nature's family, seeing nature as important respecting all of nature. And I'm so hopeful because I just I'm meeting people who are who are understanding that and who are teaching me to be a better steward. And it's just so beautiful here it's hard not to have some hope. This has been a depressing conversation, but seriously, there's there's still so much hope and so much beauty is still around, and let's just nurture that and allow all this beauty to grow and, and be respectful.

Claire:

So for my final question, you said that knowing about environmental and ecological grief, it's important because it affects all of us, and there is hope in the situation. So if I went to my metaphorical shed to pick out a tool that represented environmental grief, and the things that you're doing to kind of, you know, impact that and make it better, what kind of tool would that be?

Kriss:

You know, I was thinking about this. And I actually wondered, it's not so much a tool, and I'm not sure if you would have this in your tool shed, but maybe just a blanket, or lawn chair of sorts. But just to sit and be out, be with nature, connecting with nature. I think that's the best thing that we can do. Again, understanding our role, understanding that we want to give back to nature. But I think if you're just able to sit and be, and just listen feel, allow all your senses to take in what nature has to offer, what she's able to share, just sitting by a tree sitting by a plant, even if it's a house plant, but just enjoying that connection, I think that would be best and forget the shovel, forget the spade, dig your hands in the dirt.

Claire:

I'm loving the different takes that my guests have on what can be added to my shed. And a fold up lawn chair, or deck chair, as we call them in the UK, is the perfect addition for sitting and watching nature around my shed, I think I'll throw the blanket in too because it's not often in the UK, we can sit outside without one. Thank you, Kriss, for all your work in such an important area, and for fighting the battles that must feel so often so thankless and huge. Without people like you, nature's voice becomes so much smaller. If you want to find out more about Kriss Rights to Nature, the Global Alliance for Rights to Nature, Earth Law Centre and Movement Rights. Then I'll put links to her website and these other organisations in the show notes. And if this is an area that you're particularly interested in, then check out Episode 16 of The Silent Why where we spoke to John Platt about the loss of species and the extinction crisis. Thanks for listening to The Silent Why podcast. If you've got a subject you'd like me to chat to an expert on, please get in touch via our social media or the website or on email, thesilentwhy@gmail.com And let's chat...

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