Fernwood Cemetery in Marin County now offers green burials.
By - 30 Minutes Bay Area, CBS-5 (San Francisco)
The green burial movement started in the United Kingdom where there are now about 150 sites. Dr. Billy Campbell founded the US’s first green burial cemetery in Westminster, SC. Opened in 1998, the Ramsey Creek Preserve now has had about 100 burials and sold an additional 50-100 plots. Campbell says that there are about 20 green burial cemeteries in development across the country but only four open for business including his and Fernwood in Marin.
Northern California is leading the nation in the alternative death movement. Fernwood Cemetery in Marin County, California, just north of San Francisco, is eco friendly 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.
Nationally, forty percent of Americans now opt for cremation at death. In Marin County that number is over eighty percent according to Ron Hast, publisher of Mortuary Management Magazine and Funeral Monitor. This isn’t surprising given the fact that the San Francisco Bay Area has often lead the way with environmental efforts and lifestyle choices. For example, Marin County has the country’s second oldest hospice—the first was in Connecticut. Cremation is thought to be more ecologically sustainable than traditional burial, which uses embalming fluids, concrete lined graves, caskets made with heavy metals and varnish and relies on the upkeep of water intensive landscapes. Environmentalists often contend that cemeteries use up and pollute valuable land.
The Fernwood Cemetery in Marin County’s Tennessee 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. Cassity’s family is in the funeral business and he himself worked as a consultant on HBO’s Six Feet Under. The Fernwood property is 32 acres with part of it set aside for natural burial. They have sold one hundred plots in the natural burial area and have already had fifty natural burials.
The goal of natural burials is to restore the land. At Fernwood, for example, it’s been overgrown by brush and invasive species and the burials are an opportunity to reverse this. So burial includes excavating the site, removing the broom or other invasive non-native plants as well as replanting the gravesite area with native grasses and wildflowers. Families can also request the planting of a native tree like a Bay or Coast Live Oak. Bodies are buried in either a simple wooden box, a biodegradable box, or in just a shroud, and bodies are not preserved with embalming fluid.
Natural burial appeals to many different people and faiths. Cassity and Campbell both report having worked with religious people to whom natural burial appeals because they say it is more closely tied to how burials were done historically. For example, Jewish burial requires that the body be buried within 48 hours of death, without any embalming fluids in a simple pine box. Orthodox Christianity also mandates burial in a simple box with no metal. Campbell says after AARP covered his site, he was flooded with emails, many from Christians who wanted to be buried in just a shroud like Jesus.
Some sites have small stone markers but most don’t, and instead loved ones who come to visit rely on the cemetery’s GPS system. Buried bodies are keyed in with a location and visitors use a hand held device to locate a plot. They are working on creating a device that lets you not only locate the grave site but also access stories and information about the person buried. The technology is being improved according to Cassity who says that one problem is that it’s difficult to read the screens in the sun.
Publisher Ron Hast has some doubts about Tyler Cassity’s eco burial cemetery. Hast says that while fewer and fewer people may be opting for a traditional funeral and burial, Cassity’s Fernwood site is still too new to determine if it will be successful. He thinks Cassity’s heart is in the right place but doesn’t think what he’s doing will appeal to the masses, but rather to a small niche market. Hast worries that elderly people who come visit their loved ones won’t be able to navigate the rocky hillside trails.
Source - http://www.acfnewsource.org/cgi-bin/printer.cgi?758