The more that Marga Laube learned about how humans are connected to the web of life on Earth, the more impossible she found it to live her life as usual.

When that feeling became untenable, she decided to enroll in a Buddhist eco-chaplaincy training program.

Situated somewhere between profession and spiritual practice, eco-chaplaincy is an emerging field rooted in religious and contemplative traditions, applied in response to the human and more-than-human suffering arising from climate and ecological crisis.

Though the field is still small in the United States, the handful of eco-chaplaincy programs across the country are a sign of a shift unfolding across religious and spiritual traditions.

“It’s about care for humans in the face of ecological distress,” said Lisa Dahill, professor of transformative leadership and spirituality at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace in Connecticut. “And care for, with, and among members of the more-than-human world towards a sense of empowerment and vision, for, with, and among the members of the more-than-human world.”

At a recent mindfulness retreat for environmental scientists and academics in Florida, Laube served as an eco-chaplain as part of a team of trained facilitators. When one scientist admitted that he often wonders if each encounter with the critically endangered Miami blue butterfly might be humanity’s last, his voice trailed off in tears.

“When grief moves from unacknowledged to witnessed,” Laube recalled, “it releases something.”

A movement is born

Sarah Vekasi says she coined the term “eco-chaplain” in 2005. After years of environmental activism on behalf of old-growth forests, she began asking, “How do we make sense of this? How do we keep going?”

Her questions led her to Buddhist practice, and after spending time studying with Zen monastics in Japan and completing a master’s degree in divinity, she served as an eco-chaplain within a resistance movement opposed to Appalachian mountaintop removal mining. In that role, Vekasi facilitated group decision-making, mediated conflict, led songs and invocations, counseled activists in crisis, liaised with police, and championed rest.

The potential need for such support is vast. Environmental scientists, climate activists and journalists, land defenders, community organizers, and disaster survivors may face burnout, trauma, and exhaustion as a consequence of the cycle of achievements and setbacks, their daily encounters with harrowing realities, and the accelerating nature of the crisis.

Climate psychology experts have warned that many of the professional services and institutions where people typically seek psychological and spiritual care are unprepared for the emotional fallout.

Eco-chaplains are stepping into this gap, recognizing that these losses are not just environmental or political crises, but existential crises that challenge traditional senses of meaning, purpose, and place on Earth.

Chris Goto-Jones, a Zen Buddhist chaplain, eco-chaplain, and psychotherapist based in Victoria, Canada, said he often notices anxiety or grief about the climate crisis lingering in the background of his work with patients or clients.

“As soon as I name that eco-grief is real,” he said, “there is recognition and relief.”

Spiritual care beyond the human

Traditionally, chaplains are spiritual caregivers trained within established religious traditions. They serve in hospitals, prisons, universities, and the military, offering crisis ministry, counseling, rituals and rites, and guidance to those who seek their care.

Eco-chaplaincy builds on that tradition, widening the circle of spiritual care beyond the human.

Goto-Jones leads “bearing witness” retreats in landscapes that have been burned, clear-cut, or used as toxic dumps.

“We go where the Earth itself may be wounded,” he explained. Through a variety of contemplative practices, “We listen and feel into the wordless suffering and let it inform a meaningful response.”

Religious traditions struggling to respond

Nearly every major religious tradition speaks on the themes of Earth stewardship, interdependence of life, and reverence for all beings. But these religions arose on an Earth that is increasingly in the rearview mirror.

“Our forms of religious practice have not prepared us for the times we’re living in,” Dahill said.

Her program at Hartford University trains eco-chaplains from a diversity of spiritual and religious backgrounds: Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Pagan, as well as atheist, agnostic, seekers, and many more. She said many students are working at the edge of their religious traditions, investigating and experimenting with how their tradition may be more responsive to the needs of today’s people and planet.

“I would say nearly all religious traditions are doing this work and grappling with these questions, even if they don’t call themselves eco-chaplains,” Dahill added.

Some eco-chaplains are drawing on Indigenous traditions.

“We learn to listen not just to each other, but to all beings,” said Kirsten Rudestam of the Sati Center’s eco-chaplaincy training. “We learn to ask permission. To honor lost landscapes and kin species. To sit with the pain.”

“There is very much a deep indebtedness that our program has to Indigenous and First Nations knowledges and wisdoms,” she said.

Beyond witnessing grief, eco-chaplaincy aims to help people reconfigure how they interact with other people and species.

“The survival of human life, and all life on Earth, is dependent on our ability to connect and belong again,” Rudestam said. “It’s dependent on our ability to be collaborative, cooperative, respectful, loving, kind, and honor the more-than-human as our kin.”

And as the climate changes, the role of spiritual caregivers must change, too.

“In 50 years,” Laube said, “I don’t think we’ll need the term ‘eco-chaplain.’ All spiritual care will be rooted in connection to the Earth.”