Ecological Empathy
By Steve Lemeshko
Yosemite National Park, California. Credit: Blake Carroll, CC0 1.0.
A recent article, “Ecological Empathy: Relational Theory and Practice” by Lauren Marie Lambert (2024), reviews the growing field of ecological empathy and explores how empathy can bridge the disconnect between humans and nature—one that has arguably contributed to today’s ecological crisis.
Empathy is fundamental to human nature. It allows us to step into the emotional and cognitive experiences of others to both build connections and understand the world. While sympathy involves feeling for someone, empathy means feeling with them—experiencing their world from their perspective. This ability to understand and relate to others’ experiences is not just a tool for personal relationships but also a way to expand the range of perspectives we consider in decision-making, leading to more inclusive and sustainable solutions in the long term.
But what happens when the subjects of our empathy are not human? Many institutions, such as zoos and aquariums, build empathy for individual animals. However, these efforts rarely extend beyond individual cases to encompass entire ecosystems. Lambert argues that we need a broader framework of ecological empathy that integrates human and more-than-human perspectives.
Lambert’s framework is based on social empathy, which combines personal awareness and perspective-taking with an understanding of broader barriers and circumstances. She identifies two elements of ecological empathy:
More-than-human awareness and perspective-taking – Empathy for non-human life begins with acknowledging the agency of multiple species. Lambert proposes several strategies to develop this awareness:
Perspective-taking – Expanding the idea of empathy beyond individual animals to whole species and entire ecosystems through scientific knowledge and imagination. Also, storytelling (narrative empathy) can help create ecological personas, making nature a stakeholder rather than a passive background.
Temporal perspectives – Recognizing that ecological change occurs on vastly different time scales than human lifespans. For example, a forest’s recovery after a wildfire is on a different time scale from the life of a mouse. Expanding our temporal perspective can lead to more thoughtful conservation strategies.
Sensing and listening – Engaging with nature through observation. This can involve scientific data collection or more intuitive practices like the art of noticing. For instance, paying attention to migratory patterns can inform decisions such as placing wildlife corridors along historical routes.
Understanding more-than-human interdependencies – Just as social empathy considers systemic factors influencing human lives, such as war or economic displacement, ecological empathy should recognize the interdependencies between living and non-living systems. Lambert identifies three forms of "embeddedness," or interconnections:
Personal embeddedness – The human need for connection with nature (biophilia), which suggests that ecological empathy is not just an intellectual exercise but a fundamental part of our well-being.
Body embeddedness – Awareness of how our bodies interact with the environment, from the air we breathe to the landscapes we move through.
Ecological embeddedness – Decentering human-centric to life-centric views and practices, where humans are not separate from nature but part of an interconnected whole.
Based on this framework, Lambert defines ecological empathy as "a cognitive and affective ability that allows for internal coherence across bodily separation in humans and their environment" (p. 11). This definition treats empathy not as an abstract value but as a practice. Like any skill, ecological empathy must be developed through context-specific actions, whether that means reimagining the world of tomorrow or simply spending more time in nature, listening and noticing.
As we face growing environmental challenges, the question of how we care for nature depends on how we connect with it. Since ecological empathy has the capacity to bridge the gap between humans and more-than-humans, cultivating it might be one of the most meaningful steps toward coexistence and sustainability.
The full citation of the article is:
Lambert, Lauren Marie. "Ecological Empathy: Relational Theory and Practice." Ecosystems and People, vol. 20, no. 1, 2024, pp. 2396919, https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2024.2396919.
For further reading, see the following articles:
How Zoos and Aquariums Help Develop Empathy for Wildlife / January 30, 2025
Pollution as Environmental Violence / October 17, 2024
Virtual Reality as an Empathy-Building Tool / October 10, 2024