Natural burial
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A natural burial ground, also known as a green burial ground or an eco-cemetery, is a cemetery where the body is returned to the earth to decompose and recycle naturally. It is an environmentally sustainable alternative to existing funeral practices.
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[edit] Burial
The body is prepared without chemical preservatives such as are used in embalming and is buried in a biodegradable coffin or simple shroud.
A natural burial preserve often uses grave markers that do not intrude on the landscape. These natural markers can include shrubs and trees, or a flat indigenous stone which may be engraved. The burial ground may be designed with centralised memorial structures where visitors can sit within an emerging forest. As in all cemeteries, there are records kept of the exact location of each interment, often using survey techniques such as GIS.
Planting native trees, shrubs, and flowers on or near the grave establishes a living memorial and helps form a protected wildlife preserve. Irrigation is not used, nor are pesticides and herbicides applied.
Cemetery legislation protects natural burial preserves in perpetuity from future development while the establishment of a conservation easement prevents future owners from altering the original intent for these burial grounds. For people who are mindful of the cyclical nature of life, a natural burial is an alternative to conventional burial methods.
[edit] Embalming
Embalming's main purpose is to retard decomposition and as such it is inconsistent with the objectives of eco-cemetery and most sites will not permit the interment of embalmed bodies.
No state or province in North America requires routine embalming of bodies. Refrigeration or dry ice can be substitute for embalming. However this does nothing to restore the appearance of the deceased to a lifelike state for a viewing and the body will continue to decompose unless completely frozen. Special circumstances such as an extended time between death and burial and transportation of remains on commercial flights, may necessitate embalming.
Formaldehyde, the most common embalming fluid, is biodegradable and even well embalmed bodies will decompose after normal ground (rather than vault) burial, save in exceptional circumstances. However, in recent years a green burial movement has protested the use of formaldehyde, which oxidizes to formic acid, the toxin in bee stings and fire ants, adding what may be considered pollution to the ground as the bodies decay.
[edit] Coffins
Most traditional caskets are made from chipboard covered in a thin veneer. Handles are usually plastic designed to look like brass. The chipboard requires glue to stick the wood particles together. Some glues that are used, such as those that contain formaldehyde, are seen as environmentally unfriendly. There is concern that such glues will cause pollution when they are burned during cremation or degrading in the ground. However, not all engineered wood products are produced using formaldehyde glues.
More expensive caskets and coffins are often manufactured using exotic and in some cases endangered species of wood and designed to prevent decomposition. While there are generally no restrictions on the type of coffin used, most sites encourage the use of environmentally friendly coffins made from cardboard or wicker. A simple cotton shroud is another option.
[edit] Environmental issues with conventional burial
Each year, 22,500 cemeteries across the United States bury approximately:
- 30 million board feet (70,000 m³) of hardwoods (caskets)
- 90,272 tons of steel (caskets)
- 14,000 tons of steel (vaults)
- 2,700 tons of copper and bronze (caskets)
- 1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete (vaults)
- 827,060 US gallons (3,130 m³) of embalming fluid, which most commonly includes formaldehyde. [1]
(Compiled from statistics by Casket and Funeral Association of America, Cremation Association of North America, Doric Inc., The Rainforest Action Network, and Mary Woodsen, Pre-Posthumous Society)
[edit] A history of natural burial by country
[edit] Canada
Mike Salisbury is a leading advocate of the natural burial movement in Canada and the current president of the Natural Burial Co-operative in Toronto[2]. A full member of the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects and the principal of Earthartist Landscape Architecture, Salisbury provides planning design and consultation to groups throughout North America involved in establishing new natural burial grounds. [3] Featured in the 2005 CBC expose on the Canadian funeral industry "Outside the Box", Salisbury has helped develop natural burial standards that encourage sustainability in the death care industry and facilitate ecological restoration and landscape level conservation.[4]
[edit] United Kingdom
The first eco-cemetery was created at Carlisle Cemetery in the United Kingdom in 1993 and was called woodland burial. Since that date over 200 natural burial sites have been created in the UK making it one of the fastest growing environmental movements.[citation needed]
[edit] United States
Billy Campbell, a rural doctor, an environmentalist, and a pioneer in the Green Burial Movement in the USA, opened the first modern "green cemetery" in North America.
In 1998, he and his wife, Kimberley, opened the Ramsey Creek Preserve in upstate South Carolina. It specializes in burials that eschew embalming, traditional coffins, and headstones in favor of a simpler, less costly, more natural approach. Graves are hand-dug, and instead of using expensive, finished coffins, the dead are buried in shrouds or a plain wooden box without a vault or grave liner.
Joe Sehee is a leading advocate of the Green Burial Movement in the United States. Joe is the executive director of the Green Burial Council, a non-profit organization he founded to encourage sustainability in the death care industry and to use the burial process as a means of facilitating ecological restoration and landscape level conservation.
The organization recently established the nation's first certifiable standards for cemeteries, funeral providers, and cremations facilities. Conventional funeral providers in eight states will now be offering the Green Burial Council approved burial package, providing a way for consumer to identify death care professionals willing to assist them with environmentally conscious end-of-life rituals.
Tyler Cassity rose to prominence in the death care industry by taking a bankrupt cemetery in a borderline part of Los Angeles and turning it into Hollywood Forever, where he had movies projected on the side of Rudolph Valentino’s mausoleum, and displayed his “LifeStories,” which are A&E-style video biographies of the dead. Tyler Cassity has been involved in several films[citation needed] and has worked as a consultant on HBO's Six Feet Under.
The Fernwood Burial Ground in Marin County's Mill Valley dates from the 19th century and is adjacent to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Tyler Cassity's Forever Enterprises purchased it in 2004. The Fernwood property is 32 acres with most of it set aside for natural burial with no tombstones or caskets. Instead, bodies are buried there in ways that aid natural decomposition, and survivors can locate their loved-ones’ burial site with a handheld device that contains a GPS location finder.
Mary Woodsen is a trustee and officer (president) of Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve in Newfield, New York.
Mary also a long-time member of the Finger Lakes Land Trust, which protects 8,000 acres (32 km²) in the Finger Lakes and Southern Rivers regions, the Cayuga chapter of Keeping Track (a national organization working with local groups around the country that document the presence of keystone wildlife species in their areas, the better to inform decisions about local and regional land use), a task force looking at conservation zoning in her township of Danby, the Society of Environmental Journalists, the Society of Conservation Biology, and the National Association of Science Writers.
Greensprings Natural Cemetery was the third natural burial ground to be established in North America.[1] One-hundred acres of rolling hilltop meadows south of Cayuga Lake in New York's Finger Lakes region. Greensprings on Irish Hill is bounded by 4,000 acre (16 km²) Arnot Forest and 4,000 acre (16 km²) Newfield State Forest.
Mark Dahlby currently serves as executive director of the green burial land trust Trust for Natural Legacies [5]. Trust for Natural Legacies is the first green cemetery organization to utilize eco-cemeteries as a conservation tool for traditional non-profit land trusts. Mark is also an attorney focusing on environmental, real estate and estate planning matters in Wisconsin, is the Conservation Chair of the Sierra Club's John Muir Chapter and is a leader in environmental education in the state of Wisconsin. Mark previously worked with Joe Sehee, Mike Salisbury and others in moving forward the development of national standards for green burial practices.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Embalming fluid chemically changes in the act of preserving the body and is not largely present as a fluid. This figure refers to embalming fluid before it is introduced to the body.
- ^ Natural Burial Co-operative Members (webpage). Natural Burial Co-operative (June 2006). Retrieved on 2007-11-28.
- ^ Earthartist - Spiritual Burial Landscapes for a Greener "Beyond" (webpage). Alternative Funeral Monitor. Retrieved on 2007-01-20.
- ^ Natural Burial, Outside the Box (webpage). The Content Factory. CBC Radio One. Retrieved on 2007-12-09.
- ^ Trust for Natural Legacies (webpage). Trust for Natural Legacies (May 2007). Retrieved on 2007-05-01.
[edit] External links
[edit] Organizations
- Centre for Natural Burial. Information and resources supporting the global natural burial movement: a complete listing and description of natural burial cemeteries in North America Europe and the UK and a comprehensive archive of natural burial magazine and newspaper articles dating back to the mid 1990's.
- The Green Burial Council. Based in the USA, the Council is an independent, non-profit organization founded to encourage ethical and sustainable practices in the death care industry and has established "Green Certified" protocols for cemetery site selection, memorial nature preserve operators, funeral providers and cremation facilities. The Center offers memberships for organizations meeting their stringent environmental standards.
- Memorial Ecosystems. Formed in 1996 by Dr. Billy Campbell, Memorial Ecosystems offers consulting services in conservation Burial Set up and Start up, creating partnerships and joint ventures.
- Funeral Consumers Alliance. Celebrating 40 years of protecting a consumer's right to choose a meaningful, dignified, affordable funeral.
- Association of Natural Burial Grounds. Based in the United Kingdom, this organization offers advice on "How To Set Up a Natural Burial Grounds" publishes a "Code of Practice" and offers a newsletter for members and several publications for the general public.
- Earthartist Landscape Architecture. Specializes in the design and development of eco-cemeteries.
