Reciprocal Healing: How the Teachings of the Natural World Restore Justice and Empathy

Author

• Meredith ElizaldeFollow

Year of Award

2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

Master of Science (MS)

Degree Name

Resource Conservation (International Conservation and Development)

Department or School/College

W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation

Committee Chair

Elena Bigart, Ph.D.

Commitee Members

Hilary Faxon, Ph.D., Madison Gerdes, Ph.D.

Keywords

human-nature reconnection, collective grief, blue space wellbeing, relational accountability, restorative justice, ecological moral intuition

Subject Categories

Criminology and Criminal Justice | Developmental Psychology | Natural Resources and Conservation | Somatic Psychology

Abstract

Endemic gun violence and ecological collapse are not separate crises. They are symptoms of a single rupture: the severing of human beings from land, community, and the relational ways of knowing that once held societies together. Unacknowledged, that severance becomes grief which becomes violence. And violence, in a society organized around domination, becomes justification for punishment. If severance produces punishment, this thesis argues that reconnection cultivates restoration. Drawing on fourteen interviews and six focus groups with survivors of violence, formerly incarcerated individuals, restorative justice practitioners, environmental educators, stewards, attorneys, and justice officials, a consistent pattern emerged: sustained, embodied encounter with living systems cultivates the moral foundations necessary for restorative justice. Nature teaches what punitive systems cannot: that harm calls for repair, not removal. Nova Scotia serves as a comparative case study, offering more than two decades of publicly funded restorative infrastructure alongside deep Mi'kmaw and maritime relational traditions. Mi'kmaq legal traditions, rooted in netukulimk - the principle of right relationship to land, community, and resources - provided the foundation on which restorative justice found institutional form. The province demonstrates what becomes possible when the thread connecting people to land, grief, and shared accountability has not been completely cut. This thesis positions restorative justice as socioecological biomimicry and introduces Ecological Moral Intuition Theory as a framework for understanding how reconnection with living systems transforms justice orientation. Collective grief, long suppressed by punitive culture, emerges here as both ecological signal and precondition for repair. Healing the relationship between people and the earth is a condition for justice reform.

Recommended Citation

Elizalde, Meredith, "Reciprocal Healing: How the Teachings of the Natural World Restore Justice and Empathy" (2026). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 12705.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/12705