The Black Summer Bushfires: Two Years Gone

LIFE AFTER LOSS

Released to mark the Anniversary of the 2019/20 summer bushfires which impacted communities across NSW, Victoria, Queensland, ACT, Western Australia and South Australia. With an official death toll of 33 people including 9 firefighters and a further 450 people later dying from summer smoke. The fires destroyed more than 3000 human homes and razed an estimated 17 million hectares with over one billion precious creatures lost.
Through conversations with bushfire survivors Katherine Boland and Jenifer James we learn about their lived experience of Climate Grief - a grief presentation on the rise as the world witnesses the toll of ecological losses. Our conversation with world renowned grief expert David Kessler provides us with an understanding of micro and macro griefs and discusses the futility of grief comparison. He also shares his own experience of profound losses and how these led him on a search for meaning and later his book; Finding Meaning-The Sixth Stage of Grief .
Katherine Boland is an award-winning artist and writer who lives on the southeast coast of Australia. On January 4, 2020, Katherine found herself fearing for her life as the fires came roaring into Merimbula - forcing her to take shelter along with her 95-year-old mother. In the aftermath of the fires, she was selected to participate in OUTPUT: ART AFTER FIRE with one of her works selected for a digital art competition held at the United Nations COP conference in Glasgow.
For Jenifer James, the bushfires forced her to take on a new identity. Formerly a respected palliative care nurse and educator, Jenifer relinquished her lifelong devotion to humans to become a wildlife warrior. In the days following the fires, Jenifer organised a 120-strong team of volunteers who risked their lives to take food and water out to desperate animals. Jenifer is part of the 2021 – 2022 cohort of Women’s Environmental Leadership Australia (WELA).
The episode also features excerpts from Andrew Kaneider’s film Mourning Country
and the perspective of Noel Butler – a Budawang elder from the Yuin Nation, who
lost his home and the aboriginal cultural centre he founded with his wife Trish in the same bushfires. For Noel the loss is much greater than shelter. It’s the unimaginable loss of flora and fauna that he was so connected to… having witnessed decades of disregard for the natural world. The film was made on the country of the Dhurga language group known as Yuin. Griefline pays its respects to the people, culture and values of the land that has been nurtured by Elders of the past and present for thousands of years.
David Kessler;
www.grief.com
www.AboutGrief.com
Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief ;
www.grief.com/sixth-stage-of-grief
Mourning Country;
https://www.nowness.com/story/mourning-country-new-south-wales-bushfire
Katherine Boland;
www.katherineboland.com.au
www.griefline.org.au
Instagram: @grieflineorganisation
Facebook: @grieflineservices
Linked-In: griefline-org-au

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