DuBois column: Ecogrief, climate grief, ecoanxiety. and chickens

 

Ecogrief, climate grief, ecoanxiety. and chickens

Ecogrief

This is almost beyond belief. 

The Washington Times is reporting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will provide “ecogrief” training to employees who are “struggling with a sense of trauma or loss as they witness a changing environment.”

The article says this class “will give staffers a chance to define what they mean by ecological grief, space to examine their emotional reactions and tools to grapple with those feelings.” This was in a memo to the employees of the Southwest region, where the training is offered.

A spokesman for the agency says, ““This 4-hour workshop seeks to normalize the wide range of emotional responses that conservationists experience while empowering participants to act while taking care of themselves. The workshop is intended for those experiencing ecological grief and for those who wish to support them.”

Ecogrief, they say, is in a series of terms to describe stress. Other labels used are “climate grief” and “ecoanxiety”.

The author even contacted the American Psychological Association which says, “it can manifest as a sense of being overwhelmed by the immensity of changes to the environment, or even a sense of ‘anticipated loss’ — essentially mourning what someone believes to be inevitable, particularly with climate change.”

So there you have it. These people are supposedly sitting in their offices and experiencing “ecogrief”, “climate grief” and “ecoanxiety”.

If you feel you must grieve, then do so for:

---The ranching family that has to pack up and leave because a certain endangered plant is on their allotment.

---The ranching family that was tried twice for the same offense and labeled as terrorists

---The folks who worked in local timber mills that have been shut down

---The rural property owners who have seen their property and facilities burned to the ground as a result of federal policy and mismanagement. 

That’s just a short list of the things that bring me grief. Call it ESAgrief, 30x30grief, NEPAanxiety, climatecrying or whatever you want, those are things that are worth grieving over.

Chickens

Looks like the lesser prairie is trying to flee the coop again, with the help of those poor folks suffering from ecogrief.

Four months ago those grieving folks in the US Fish & Wildlife Service recovered long enough to designate the lesser prairie chicken as threatened and endangered. How can it be both threatened and endangered? Because they designated two distinct populations. A northern population in the Texas panhandle, Kansas, Oklahoma and Colorado, which will be listed as threatened, and a southern distinct population in west Texas and New Mexico where the chicken will be classified as endangered.

The effective date for the designations was to be January 24, but those poor suffering souls have decided to extend that to March 27. Was this because of ecogrief? Nope, more likely it was because of a lawsuit.

The Western Livestock Journal reports the NCBA and other entities have filed suit to delay the listing. The NCBA says, “The science has proven repeatedly that healthy, diverse rangelands—like those cultivated by livestock grazing—are where the lesser prairie chicken thrives. There are numerous places where this listing goes seriously wrong and we are defending cattle producers against this overreaching, unscientific rule.”

The American Farm Bureau Federation has done an analysis that says the value of ag production in those states affected is “nearly $55 billion, or 15% of total U.S. production by value.”  Now that is certainly enough to make you grieve.

30x30

Recall this is the Biden Administration’s initiative to protect 30 percent of the land and water across the entire globe. First proposed in 2020 by the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, it originally got 50 nations, including the US, to sign on to the program. By 2021 100 nations were participants. And by the end of 2022 190 nations had signed on. For Brian O’Donnell, the director of the Campaign for Nature, 30×30 should be considered a “floor not a ceiling.”

What does this mean for the U.S.?  It would take an area twice the size of Texas to be set aside and protected. That definitely has me grieving again.  

Until next time, be a nuisance to the devil and don’t forget to check that cinch.

 Frank DuBois was the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003, is the author of a blog: The Westerner (www.thewesterner.blogspot.com) and is the founder of The DuBois Rodeo Scholarship and The DuBois Western Heritage Foundation

This column originally appeared in the March editions of both the NM Stockman and the Livestock Market Digest