Climate Grief: Relearning the Future

Abstract

Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada, is eroding at an average rate of about one foot per year. People are grieving the losses, both past and future, of meaningful places embedded with memory. While the field of landscape has often separated climate change adaptation projects from work focused on human healing, this thesis brings the two sides together in a community-centered landscape regeneration project on PEI.

The meaning of loss is different for every individual on the island, whether human or non-human. At the root of environmental degradation is the property line, a legacy of ongoing colonial practices that continue to facilitate deforestation at the edge and exacerbate land loss. These imagined lines motivate landowners to try and stop erosion, and limit many other peoples’ access to the shoreline. However, steady levels of erosion are also part of a broader ecology of disturbance that supports biodiverse habitat. This project imagines how environmental strategies can be integrated across property lines to reweave the ecological gradient from the inland forest to the intertidal zone, creating new relationships with healthy erosion. As the fabric of the island is rewoven, human and ecological healing become intertwined.