Nearly every aspect of our lives impacts the environment. Death, unfortunately, is no exception. And just as more and more people are considering how the choices they make in life can affect the health of the planet, so, too, are more people searching for a meaningful way to make their end-of-life less demanding on the natural world.

And it’s no wonder, considering that the typical American funeral requires the extraction and consumption of vast amounts of resources and leaves a trail of damage in its wake.

A ten-acre swatch of cemetery ground will contain enough coffin wood to construct more than 40 homes, nearly a thousand tons of casket steel and another 20,000 tons of concrete for vaults.

As if that weren’t enough, formaldehyde, the primary ingredient in embalming fluids — and a human carcinogen, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer — is another concern.

Nearly a million gallons of embalming fluid is buried across North America each year. While there hasn’t been sufficient research to determine specific effects on the environment, exposure to formaldehyde has led to a higher incidence of leukemia and cancers of the brain and colon among funeral directors.

But alternatives exist. However, not all alternatives are created equal, and those who work to create new options sometimes face difficulties.

Cremation is perhaps the most well known option for those in search of something different from the standard funeral. About 30 percent of North Americans are currently choosing cremation, according to the Cremation Association of North America, and about 20 percent of those who choose cremation do so for environmental reasons or to help preserve land.

At first glance, cremation does seem like a friendlier option for Mother Earth, however, there are issues to consider with this option, as well. For instance, the amount of non-renewable fossil fuel needed to cremate bodies in North America is equivalent to a car making 84 trips to the Moon and back each year, according to the Centre for Natural Burial.

In addition, there are major emissions released from crematories, including nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, mercury vapour, hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride and other heavy metals. Modern crematoria have scrubbers over the smoke stacks, but they can’t get everything, and what they don’t get is released into the air as pollution.

In life, humans struggle to leave this world a better place than we found it. In our final act on this planet, is there a way for us to accomplish that noble goal in death as well?

Conserving land by using it
For those seeking an alternative that doesn’t pollute the ground or air and can actually have a positive lasting affect on the wellbeing of the planet, a new option is emerging. Not quite a decade ago, in Westminster, S.C., Ramsey Creek Preserve became the first “green cemetery” in the United States. Dr. Billy Campbell and his wife Kimberley Campbell created this conservation burial ground in 1998 on 33 acres of land with the intention of harnessing the funeral industry for land protection and restoration, while offering a less expensive and more meaningful burial option.

Though he had been interested in death care for years before and had even had an idea for creating a new type of memorial park that would be a tool for saving land, it was his experience after the untimely death of his father that left Billy deeply unsatisfied with the funeral industry and convinced him to pursue his vision of conservation burial.

Unlike conventional cemeteries filled with rows and rows of gravesites, manicured and groomed using weed killers and other harmful chemicals, his idea was for Ramsey Creek to be a nature park with native species of flora and fauna, hiking trails and natural beauty.

“A lot of times, when people first come, they really don’t know that it’s a burial site,” says Kimberley Campbell.

With winding trails through the forest, the sounds of the creek in the distance, birds flying overhead and leaves rustling in the wind, Ramsey Creek often overwhelms visitors with a sense of life, rather than a sense of death, Kimberly says. But a beautiful final resting place is only part of a larger concept.

The term “green burial” is gaining popularity, but the trouble with the term lies in its vagueness.

“A green burial can mean a lot of different things to different people,” Kimberley explains.

To some, it might mean using more environmentally conscious practices as part of a standard funeral — not being embalmed, for example. And while Kimberly sees every step in the right direction as positive, the main issue for her and Billy is whether or not the piece of land holds a conservation value. That is the idea behind Ramsey Creek and what they call “conservation burial” — natural burial that serves a higher, significant conservation purpose.

“We were trying to find ways to save, protect and preserve land,” says Kimberley.

And they have. State laws ban the development of dedicated cemeteries, protecting the land in perpetuity. In addition, Ramsey Creek is now protected by a conservation easement with Upstate Forever, the largest land-trust in South Carolina.

The land is protected as a nature and wildlife preserve, allowing hundreds of diverse native species to thrive. Un-embalmed bodies fertilize the soil and provide nutrients for trees and plants. Only biodegradable caskets or shrouds are allowed, and graves may be marked with a flat stone of native geological makeup.

At a conventional cemetery, a perpetual care fund is dedicated to the upkeep of what Kimberley calls, “that kind of pristine, perfect, kind of golf course look with the plastic flowers.” While a percentage of the sale price of a burial plot at Ramsey Creek goes into a permanent endowment for the care of the land, the contrast lies in the kind of care provided.

Rather than being mowed and chemically treated, Ramsey Creek ensures that once native vegetation is in place, it is free to grow. The funds help to keep trails and public spaces open and keep invasive species at bay. The funds are also used to acquire, restore and protect additional portions of land. Billy and Kimberley have a goal of saving a million acres of land throughout the United States and helping to create conservation burial grounds in each of the 50 states.

Not just a green thing
Though it’s the primary goal of Ramsey Creek Preserve to be an environmentally friendly alternative to the typical American funeral — and, just as importantly, to protect and conserve wild land — there are additional benefits to a natural burial at the Preserve.

For some, the “green” in “green burials” refers to the money that they save over the average cost of a funeral in the U.S. The National Funeral Director’s Association reports that the average cost of a funeral in 2004 was $6,500. That includes a casket, but does not account for cemetery costs. Kimberley says that in her experience, all-said, a typical American funeral will end up running somewhere between $12,000 and $17,000. In contrast, the cost of a funeral at Ramsey Creek — from start to finish — usually falls between $2,600 and $4,500.

Without the expense of embalming (with refrigeration and dry ice readily available, the Green Burial Council believes that “embalming ought to be an anachronism” and claims that “there is not one shred of evidence that suggests embalming provides any public-health benefits.”), without vaults to seal the grave from air and dirt, and with the use of a simple coffin or shroud in place of an elaborate casket, the inherent simplicity of natural burial creates a significant financial incentive.

For those without environmental motivations, natural burial may be a simple matter of financial common sense. But there is also a sense of value for people who choose the Preserve as their final resting place based on ecological reasons. They are saving money, using fewer resources and leaving a legacy of land and wildlife conservation.

Still, for others, the appeal of Ramsey Creek has to do with the intimacy of the setting and the service.

“It’s not just driving up to the site and getting out of your car. A lot of times we’ll walk quite a way to the site,” Kimberley explains. “You smell the earth. You hear the creek. You feel a part of the elements and part of the situation.”

In these burial rituals, the family members often play an active role, as they have throughout history.

Until about a century ago, family members — the women, specifically — took care of the dead, bathing them and laying them out.
“It was the old way,” says Karen van Vuuren, director of Natural Transitions.

The Boulder-based nonprofit’s mission is to reclaim after-death care for families and communities, educating and empowering them to make choices that are more meaningful, affordable and environmentally conscious.

“People can do this. We are just afraid of the unknown, so we pass it off to strangers,” says Karen. But when families do take an active role in the funeral rituals, she says that the grief seems to flow more and families are able to integrate the experience in a meaningful way.

“They’re amazed that it seems so natural to be with death,” explains Karen. 

Back at Ramsey Creek, Kimberly confirms this idea. She says that no instructions are needed — people just seem to know instinctively what to do. There are shovels placed around the grave and, in both practical and symbolic senses, the family helps to bury their loved one.

“For me,” Kimberley says, “the sound of that first shovelful of earth hitting the box is a very sobering sound.

“There’s something so elegant about giving your body back to the earth,” she adds.

In the intimacy of the woods, grieving people are able to find peace.

“I don’t know how many people have said, ‘This was the most peaceful, spiritual experience. This is the way it should be.’”

A preserve near you?
Clear on the other side of the country, in October of 2002, Laina Corazon Coit was visiting her brother in Idaho. Though he had no previous knowledge of Ramsey Creek Preserve, Rick Chase was contemplating what he could do to make the world a better place. The idea that he shared with his sister was remarkably similar to the South Carolina preserve.

He wanted to save land. His idea for financing the conservation was to sell funeral plots on the land he hoped to save. Feeling a personal tie with the prairie lands of eastern Colorado, he wanted to acquire a large piece of land and create what would be known as the Prairie Wilderness Cemeteries.

When Laina heard his idea, it immediately resonated with her. She began working toward creating an appropriate nonprofit organization that would be dedicated to combining a natural cemetery with a prairie wildlife refuge.

Though they have spent much of their time since that first conversation doing the research and legwork to make their dream a reality, they have run into roadblocks along the way.

Most notably, the land in Weld County that they bought to use as the location for the cemetery, could only be reached by an access road shared by two neighboring families. According to Laina, the families, who lived in the country for the peace and quiet it offered, were concerned with the amount of traffic that a cemetery and wildlife preserve might attract. And while she says that the county commissioners have the final say and could theoretically decide to allow the cemetery on that property, Laina has never intended to make enemies in the process and is, therefore, not pressing the matter.

This barrier has left the Prairie Wilderness Cemetery project on hold until the land can be sold and/or another suitable property can be acquired.

In the meantime, Laina is working toward a side project involving an existing cemetery in the Denver metro area. Her hope is that she can generate enough interest in “green burial” to convince the cemetery owners to create a “green” section of the existing cemetery. She hopes to be able to manage such a place, employing “greener” funeral practices and planting wildflower meadows instead of groomed plots.

The funeral of the future
There are currently eight operating natural burial preserves in the United States and five that are under development, including Ramsey Creek Preserve and Prairie Wilderness Cemeteries. But it looks like there are more to come. Kimberley says that 10 years after Ramsey Creek became operational, she and her husband get almost-daily emails and phone calls from people who want to start a natural burial preserve and are looking for advice. And after a decade of mistakes and successes, they are in a pretty good position to be giving advice.

“We made every mistake possible,” she says.

Among the biggest of those mistakes, she says, was under-funding the project and not making a strong enough alliance with funeral homes from the beginning. And the advice she offers people who want to create a conservation burial ground is reflective of that. “Do your research, have a really strong core value, and make good alliances with people within the industry — local funeral homes and land saving groups — so it’s not just you by yourself.”

Despite their mistakes, Ramsey Creek seems to be on to something. There have been more than 100 natural burials on the property.

“We’ve had more sales in the last year than in the previous seven,” Kimberly says.

And an additional 400 pre-need sales demonstrate that awareness and interest is on the rise.

Kimberley thinks the increase in awareness is a result of a myriad of factors, including the availability of information via the Internet, concern over global warming and a search for meaning — in life and death. The lasting legacy of conservation burial is certainly meaningful, not only for the land and wildlife saved, but also for the families and loved ones who have a place they can actually use. They can take their dog for a walk in the woods, or sit by the creek and contemplate the beauty of the natural world and the cycle of life.

For Kimberley, the land itself is different. “It has changed for me in such a profound way. The landscape has stories associated with it. It has been made so much richer in so many ways.”

Finding alternatives
For local alternatives to the “typical American funeral,” including home funerals and guidance in reducing the environmental impact of a funeral, contact:

Natural Transitions
303-443-3418
P.O. Box 17848
Boulder, CO 80308
info@naturaltransitions.org
www.naturaltransitions.org 

For more information on Ramsey Creek Preserve or to learn about the consulting services offered to those who wish to start their own conservation burial ground, contact:

Memorial Ecosystems, Inc.
864-647-7798
111 West Main St.
Westminster, SC 29693
kimberley@memorialecosystems.com
www.memorialecosystems.com
For information on Prairie Wilderness Cemeteries, including how to get involved or express interest in a natural burial, contact:

Prairie Wilderness Cemeteries
970-656-8412
303-832-7074
P.O. Box 181028
Denver, CO 80218
lcorazoncoit@ncolcomm.com
www.prairiewildernesscemetery.org


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