OAKHURST, TEXAS— She had been battling cancer for nearly two years now, and finally she drew her last breath surrounded by friends and family. They took her frail body — wrapped in a warm down comforter — and lined her grave with Spanish moss, just as she had asked them to. They placed her on a plywood plank and, with ropes, mourners slowly lowered her into a hole on one of the many wildlife preservation sites she had dedicated her final years to protecting.

Over tears, they covered her in the moss, and covered her body with the earth.
And here, just a stone’s throw distance from a rock cliff overlooking Lake Livingston, two bronze lions guard the grave of Marjorie Haw Russell, a woman who died but whose memory will live on.
Russell, 91, died Sunday, May 27, at 9:30 p.m., and in line with her wishes, was buried less than 12 hours later as the sun rose over Lake Livingston.
Her body was placed in an open grave as part of what’s become known as a green burial, a foreign process to some, but one her son, George Russell, said is in line with his mother’s environmentalist nature.
“It is an experience, since I have only one mother, that thankfully I will have to endure only once in my lifetime,” Russell said, staring out over the mound of dirt topped with a red geranium and a dogwood tree planted at the head of her grave, a request she made in her final words.

In death, as in life
The Green Burial Council, a non-profit organization that has established guidelines for the natural burials, calls a green burial one that “encourages sustainable and ethical practices.”
And this is something Russell said his mother believed in.
“Her life is a perpetual legacy to the future of, not only Texas and the U.S., but to the entire biosphere that keeps us all alive,” Russell said.
In her lifetime, Marjorie and her husband, Kenneth, have set aside hundreds of acres of land in San Jacinto and Walker counties to serve as nature sanctuaries.
And 10 acres of that land is the Russell Family Cemetery, the only family-owned eco-cemetery in the nation.
“It’s what she wanted,” Kenneth Russell said.
Green burials are different from traditional funerals in two major ways: bodies are not embalmed and no vault is used.
In some instances, a wicker or pine coffin can be used, but most often the body is wrapped in a natural fiber blanket and placed directly into the ground and covered with soil.
The goal of green burials, according to the council, is to have as little economic impact on the environment as possible.
While not a new process, green burials have come into the limelight after the first commercial eco-cemetery was established in 1998 in South Carolina.
Green burials are significantly different because of the reduced environmental impact they have, according to the council.
In fact, statistics compiled from the Casket and Funeral Association of America and Cremation Association of North America, show more than 104,000 tons of steel, 2,700 tons of copper and bronze, more than 1.6 million tons of concrete and 827,060 gallons of formaldehyde are buried each year through traditional burials.
These non-biodegradeable substances collect and, in some instances, can contaminate groundwater sources and nearby water reserves.
With green burials, the council says, the amount of non-biodegradable material introduced into the earth is none. “I’ve talked to a couple thousand consumers over the last four years, and I know what’s driving them (to look into green burials),” said Joe Sehee, executive director of the council. “Allowing people to feel as though their last act on earth contributes to a positive purpose connects them in an almost religious way to this concept. It makes people’s eyes sparkle.”
Most burial grounds are not landscaped, left to grow naturally with as little impact to the environment as possible, including minimal use of excavation tools to dig the grave.
After Marjorie Russell’s body was placed into the grave, friends took a shovel and covered her.
“It was a very personal experience,” George Russell said. “To me, the artificial nature of the modern burial … is much less human than when the family can gather around the person who has died.”

‘Green’ burial includes no embalming and the use of wrapping the body in a shroud or placing them (the deceased) in a completely bio-degradable coffin/casket that can be made of non-treated wood, wicker, or cardboard. Instead of creating large cemeteries that are only used for the dead and the use of valuable land space, conservation cemeteries are popping up across the country.  Here, people can be buried ‘green’ and can have a rose bush, tree, rock, just about anything natural placed to mark where they are buried and will not disrupt the environment.

Ask your area funeral directors where  you can have a ‘green’ funeral/burial in you area.  Please keep in mind, many funeral establishments are not up to speed on going ‘green’ but they should be willing to look into conservation funerals for you.  Most of the conservation cemeteries are starting in Nature Preserves where building and destruction of the land is not allowed in the first place.  And…each body buried can have the option to be place in the ground with a GPS tracking device to always know their whereabouts for the future generations. Can cost $2000 or less and you are doing your part for the planet.

The traditional earth burial now is: embalm the body, place in a burial container that will not allow the decomposition process to occur, place in a cement vault to keep the body even more from decomposing and to keep the ground from caving in to be able place a very large ‘monument’ on the ground to show someone is buried there.  All of the above for the traditional funeral  costs big money (at least $6000.) and for what?!

When I first begin studying funeral service, I quickly realized that I was being taught how to sell death.  To me, I was in it because I feel some things are to remain sacred.  Everything about the traditional American funeral is about how much money a person spent and to hell with anything else (our needs during mourning and what we are doing to the environment).  And that is where I felt I had to do something about the industry to be able to live with myself as a future undertaker (do not have that piece of paper just yet, but doesn’t mean I don’t know my stuff

My main goal is to start an awareness about green funerals.  The world over, other people’s get this, we Americans do not.  Many of us still don’t even believe in global warming. So we probably won’t see much change in our life times.  But, who knows, we may just luck out!   For our planet’s sake, I sure hope so.

THE area’s first new-style woodland burial park is soon to be open in North Weald.

Planners gave the green light for the 52-acre Epping Forest Burial Park last year and now an open day is being held for people to get a first glimpse how the mature woodland cemetery will look.

The open day is at Gaynes Park Barns, on the edge of Roughtalleys Wood, from 10am to 5pm on Friday.

Visitors will be able to find out more about the plans, meet the team and take a tour of the wood to see how burials, interments and ash scatterings will take place.

Spokesman Fran Hall said: “Unlike other green burial sites, which are often nothing more than bare fields, our concept is to use existing mature woodland and provide families with the best possible experience.”

Epping Forest Burial Park will be run by Colney Memorial Parks on the same principle as its original headquarters in Norfolk.

Ms Hall said: “With space running out in traditional cemeteries, woodland burials not only provide extra space but can also offer families much more choice - from the location of the grave to the style of burial. One of the things families find particularly distressing is the feeling of being rushed and so we allow at least two hours between funerals.

“Our focus is on providing an environment which celebrates the cycle of life, a living place where life goes on, somewhere that families can come and remember their loved ones surrounded by nature.”

The new burial park is expected to open later this year when access roads are in place.

Once fully complete early next year the park will offer families a woodland hall for services, a reception centre and a woodland shelter.

Burials will be in circles around trees and discreetly marked by footpaths,. The park will be open 365 days a year.

For more details, ring Fran Hall on 07866 596234 or visit www.woodlandburialparks.co.uk.

Concerns have been raised over the lack of natural burial sites in Cornwall. The county currently has one site near Penzance for environmentally friendly burials while Devon has seven sites. The Association for Natural Burial Grounds (ANBG) said the problem was particularly prevalent in Cornwall and the South East.

Tom Marks from Kerrier District Council said there was a small woodland area attached to a conventional burial site in Camborne which people could use.

He said people could plant trees instead of headstones.

Open spaces manager for Penwith District Council, Brian Hosken, said there was currently no plans for any more burial sites.

There are currently 223 natural burial grounds across the country.

Spokesperson for ANBG, Mike Jarvis, said: “In Cornwall, I’m disturbed that people have to travel because of course when people have to travel to find a reasonable alternative to traditional burial grounds or cremation, the very act of travelling will erode the environmental benefits.”

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/england/cornwall/6703545.stm

Published: 2007/05/30 14:49:44 GMT

Even in death, Michael Kalmanovitch will follow the cardinal rules of conservation. He wants his body rendered, “like any other animal,” and hopefully recycled–rendering, of course, being the process by which a body is crushed or boiled to seperate the fat from the bone. The fat can then be used to make animal feed, wax, glue, etc.

Kalmanovitch’s extreme dedication to the environment may shock some, but it wouldn’t be the first time the green crusader has pushed Edmontonians beyond their comfort zone. Whether he’s upsetting the legions by selling white poppies for peace while Canada is at war or pushing City Hall to implement an anti-idling ban in a freezing city devoted to the personal automobile, the owner of Earth’s General Store has a knack for disrupting the status quo and pushing Edmonton’s environmental agenda forward. He’s been doing it for over a decade, he wants to keep doing it… even after he’s dead.

Like many aspects of North American culture, our death rituals exact a huge toll on the environment. Embalming injects corpses with formaldehyde, a known carcinogen. Lacquer and varnish on caskets contain petrochemicals. The concrete vaults that encase each burial plot block rainwater from returning to the water table. Traditional cemeteries also eat up a lot of land: if we extrapolate from the average size of a coffin and the number of deaths, burial plots alone gobbled up roughly 6,800 square metres in the Capital Region in 2005 alone (if everyone had been buried).

Kalmanovitch has rejected these traditions and stipulates three options in his will for the disposal of his body: rendering, burial on a farm, or cremation. “We are a society that is now looking at doing things differently than we have been in the last 150 years or so,” he says. “People want a ceremony that supports their beliefs.”

Kalmanovitch isn’t the only person looking to lead an alternative deathstyle. Overseas, the natural burial movement has gained momentum, with 200 ecologically friendly cemeteries in operation in Britain. The Ecopod, a peapod-shaped biodegradable casket made of paper and hardened with minerals, sort of like papier-mâché, was also developed in Britain.

The sacrosanct corpse

In Canada, tradition and provincial laws make ecologically sustainable options difficult and sometimes impossible to implement. All human remains must be treated with “dignity,” says Eoin Kenny, a spokesperson for Service Alberta. It’s a good law in some respects–few people would want grandma’s body arbitrarily turned over to necrophiliacs. The downside, of course, is the wasteful practices it perpetuates. For example, even during cremation, human bodies must recline in a coffin. Simply throwing a body into a fire is considered an indignity.

So imagine what the authorities would think of recycling a body. As Kenny diplomatically puts it, rendering is “not an approved method of disposing a body.” Which means the chances of Kalmanovitch’s body being recycled into useful objects like candles or pet food are pretty much nil.

If you’re really interested in a finding another use for your body once you’ve shuffled off your mortal coil, the law makes special exceptions for people who donate their body to science. Although it doesn’t technically qualify as recycling, the gift to education would at least represent a re-use option.

Organic burial

Kalmanovitch is very much aware of the laws against rendering corpses, and has laid out other options in his will. Next on his list is burial on an organic farm. He objects to the amount of space cemeteries eat up, especially within the city, where the land could be much productively used to provide shelters for the living, not monuments to the dead.

His burial should involve as little fuss as possible, Kalmanovitch says: “I want to be buried in a natural state, just in a cloth, and put into the ground so that micro-organisms can break me down.”

But if Kalmanovitch wants that process to happen underneath a farm, he and his family may once again run into conflicts with provincial laws. Each corpse requires a burial permit, and each cemetery requires municipal and provincial approval–something a farm is unlikely to receive, no matter how bucolic the setting. “We need to relax some of those laws, as long as it doesn’t present the possibility of making other people sick,” says Kalmanovitch.

There are some sensible health-related reasons behind these precautions. Disease could contaminate the water supply. Also, permits for cemeteries are generally only granted to cities and religious organizations, which Kenny says helps ensure burial records are kept safe.

Local fare
The Canadian group works to create natural cemeteries, where all the trappings of traditional burial–embalming, concrete vaults, elaborate coffins and headstones–are forbidden. The group also works on preserving natural land and native ecosystems though the creation of alternative final resting places. The NBA has active branches working toward natural burial grounds in Ontario and Saskatchewan, and in 2008, British Columbia is expected to become the first Canadian province with natural burial grounds. (They’ve got a spot picked out in Victoria.)

There are no plans for natural burial grounds in Edmonton, which makes local green funerals more complicated, but not impossible. City cemeteries require concrete vaults for each plot (the structure keeps the ground from caving in after the body and coffin collapse and begin decomposing), but country cemeteries often don’t, offers Ted Winn, president of Imperial Legacy Caskets. The Edmonton-based company manufactures plain wood caskets with no metal whatsoever. Since the green agenda became mainstream, many companies have jumped on the bandwagon and new products are coming out all the time. A quick chat with a funeral director could uncover other options as well.

Going up in smoke

Kalmanovitch’s last choice, cremation, is the easiest option, but not one that the eco-crusader finds entirely satisfactory. Burning his body would create carbon emissions and pollution. (The mercury in dental fillings is the most cited culprit.) Kalmanovitch could offset the pollution by stipulating a sum for carbon emissions credits in his will, but that’s not an ideal solution. As he said earlier, he wants a ceremony that reflects his beliefs. If his life didn’t fall into easy conventions, why should his death?

Edmonton lawyer Erin Chrusch

No one wants to hear ‘oops’ when a corpse is involved

Even if your family tree is stuffed with eco-activists, it’s important that you talk about your green burial plans with family and friends, says Erin Chrusch, an Edmonton lawyer with the Estate House.

Even if you specifically set out your wishes in your will, she says, that’s no guarantee they’ll be followed. “It’s usually too late by the time people look at the will,” she warns. “You might already be on your way to being embalmed or cremated. Then your executor looks at the will and goes, ‘Oops!’”

June Campbell, director at Park Memorial funeral home, agrees. Family power games often get played out after a death, and having a plan in place can save everyone additional stress. For the eco-activist ready to contemplate their ultimate demise, here are three helpful pointers.

1. Talk with family and friends about your wishes. Make sure they fully understand how each aspect of the funeral will unfold and why. It’ll be harder than explaining to your suburban soccer-mom older sister why you still insist on taking public transit, but it’s also more important. Make the effort.

2. Choose your executor wisely. If you don’t specify an executor, the responsibility falls to your eldest next of kin. So if you don’t want your SUV-driving uncle at the helm, designate another relative or friend who shares, or at least respects your views. This person will make all the decisions regarding your burial. They can change anything regardless of any wishes you have set out, so make sure it’s someone you trust.

3. Pre-plan your funeral. Writing out all the details of your funeral and leaving them with a trusted friend or relative can offer some assurance. You can also sign-up for a pre-planned burial though a funeral home, but they will request some payment up front. Set out all the details with the funeral home and they will keep it on file until your death.

I’m fascinated by death - how it happens, how we deal with it, attitudes towards it. Since 1991 I’ve conducted almost 1000 funerals without religion as a Humanist Celebrant, so I’ve learned a lot about British attitudes to death, dying and bereavement, and a lot of social history. Death doesn’t discriminate - it comes to all classes, all ages, all races.

I did a funeral at the Greenwood Burial Ground at Farnham, near Saxmundham in Suffolk, today. It’s unlike the other green burial grounds near here.

Most of the trees are already established and the graves are dug between them. In other green burial sites, the trees are planted on the graves in the autumn, so a new-ish site can look rather bare for a few years.

I used to think that doing it this way, with the graves so close to the trees, might damage them, but the gravedigger said it doesn’t harm them. It’s like pruning the trees, only underground, and they grow new roots. I’m not convinced but haven’t noticed any dying off.

A town running out of burial space in its churchyard is hoping to set up a memorial website to encourage people to use a natural burial ground nearby.

St Mary’s Church in Usk, Monmouthshire is expected to run out of grave space within five years.

A private cemetery in Usk castle grounds offers “green” burials but headstones and memorials are banned.

Town officials hope an online memorial will allow relatives using it to leave tributes on the web instead.

Town councillor Roger Galletley explained: “The existing church yard only has space for about four or five years.

“The town council and Monmouthshire Council have been trying for the last seven years to find additional land within the town which could be used as a cemetery.

Instead of a stone memorial, you could have a page of your own which could have writing on similar to a headstone and which would be there forever
Roger Galletley, town councillor

“We did find one local landowner who wanted a quarter of a million for it which wasn’t viable.

“But there is a natural burial site,” he said.

The site is in the grounds of 12th Century Usk Castle and can hold 2,500 graves.

But none of the graves can be marked formally with headstones and the coffins must be made of biodegradable material.

Burials at the site cost around £1,000.

“It’s a wonderful site with magnificent views over the Usk Vale but one of the conditions of natural burial site is there are no memorials,” said Mr Galletley.

He said he thought this was one of the reasons putting people in the town off the cemetery.

Talks were held to erect a permanent memorial in the town which names could be added to instead of having individual memorials.

However, the only place it could have been erected was in the church’s graveyard and there were fears that only those who were of the Christian faith would be allowed to be included on the memorial.

‘In its infancy’

“We felt we needed a memorial that encompassed all faiths,” explained Mr Galletley.

“So we came up with the possibility of an online memorial website.

“Instead of a stone memorial, you could have a page of your own which could have writing on similar to a headstone and which would be there forever.”

He said pictures of the burial plot or the views from the grave could be added to the memorial page which would be maintained either by Native Woodlands, who run the natural burial ground, or the town council.

Mr Galletley said: “We’ve had no complaints to the idea, but it is still very much in its infancy at the moment.”

Web designer Alfie Goodrich, whose parents are buried at the burial ground, said a website would “fulfil a need” many grieving relatives have for a lasting tribute to loved ones.

He said: “It’s more accessible than a book and people can opt to leave more than basic listings.

“It can be an ongoing tribute where people can add pictures and other things.

“There is nothing at the burial ground to mark it as a cemetery and the website could also provide a record for Usk of who is buried there as the numbers increase.”

Source - http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/wales/south_east/6704441.stm

The move towards a greener lifestyle extends even to the end of life. Choices for the final resting place include some relatively new approaches. Many of these developments seem to be coming out of the United Kingdom and from Europe, though they are being adopted in other countries, as well.

Green burials are now being performed in park- or forest-like settings. The more familiar green lawn with rows of stone markers is being replaced by a more natural setting, a meadow or a stand of trees. Green burials also forego many of the common contemporary conventions in favor of a simpler funeral and burial practive. Green burials do not use formaldehyde compounds to preserve the body, for example. Metal coffins, or coffins that use exotic and unsustainably harvested wood are also not allowed, as well as not using concrete burial vaults. Many of these steps are both more economical choices as well as avoiding consuming quantities of resources unnecessarily.

GreenSprings is a 100 acre site with meadows and woodlands in the Finger Lakes region of upstate new York that is one provider of green burial sites.

Greensprings offers a sustainable and beautiful alternative to conventional cemeteries. It is a place of meadows and woodlands, where you may choose native trees and shrubs for planting on your gravesite, helping to restore the land to it natural state and providing shelter and food for wildlife.

There are options for coffin selection as well that try to offer a greener choice. Ecopods are coffins made from “naturally hardened, 100% recycled paper.” Being lighter than traditional coffins and having fewer materials used for a coffin is in line with many people’s greener values. The company currently offers them in four color choices, plus silkscreen decoration, but a huge range of individual customization should be readily available as this market expands. The ecopod is suitable for burial or for cremation. However, the ecopod makers encourage people not to choose cremation because of the additional pollution it causes. It is also suitable for use in conjunction with a woodland burial.

In the UK, the Natural Death Centre brings many of these trends together with support for environmentally-friendly funerals and natural Burial Grounds. In the US, the Green Burial Council addresses similar issues on this side of the Atlantic. There are currently providers in nine states, though the website does not include direct links to any of them. The Green Burial Council has two standards for green burials. According to their site, “A “Natural Burial Ground” is a cemetery that encourages sustainable and ethical practices.” Above and beyond that level, a “Conservation Burial Ground” also has a land conservation component.

Plans for a cemetery that would have carried natural or “green” burials were scrapped, for now, after growing opposition from neighbors and general concerns about the plans for the project surfaced.

Planner Daniel Faller said Oakland resident James Darrell Carrier, who sought a conditional use permit to establish a cemetery on agricultural-zoned land at Bristow Road and Sunnyside-Gott Road, withdrew his request Thursday night because the surveyor for the project could not attend the meeting.

Aron London, 22, who lives on Bethel Lane, said she supports Carrier’s plans for a traditional cemetery.

“We were all against it,” London said, until she and others found out that Carrier’s plans had changed.

London said Carrier met with her and about 12 neighbors Monday.

Carrier called previous mentions of green burials a “misunderstanding,” she said.

London said she saw more detailed plans for landscape and fencing bufferings for the property.

London and Nelson O’Dell, who also lives on Bethel Lane, said they drive by the property every day on their way to day care for their 2-year-old son, Riley.

Both said they had concerns the cemetery wouldn’t be fenced and would eventually take on an unsavory and unkempt appearance.

Last month Carrier’s request said the property was to be used for traditional burials and for “green” burials, which are characterized by burial without a steel or concrete vault, or upright tombstones and statues.

With green burials, bodies are not chemically preserved and are buried in biodegradable caskets without linings or metal ornamentation, or in shrouds, according to planning documents.

Carrier previously said green burials were more affordable for people who could not pay for an expensive funeral and the property would be used for burial only, without a funeral home or monument sales at the location.

Faller said Carrier is expected to come before the board of adjustments next month to present his request again for a traditional cemetery.

Driving north from the skyscrapers and stadiums of downtown Detroit to Upland Hills Farm, just north of Rochester in Addison Township, is a study in quick transitions: from urban core to suburban sprawl to rolling pastures and forests in just 45 minutes.

But just when you think you are beyond the reach of development, you catch a glimpse of subdivisions with names like Oaks of Oakland stealthily sneaking in between the barns and plowed fields. And not just in northern Oakland County, it’s eating away at the entire seven-county metropolitan planning region.

With many of our elected leaders fiddling while Rome is burning, SE Michigan’s inhabited land area has more than doubled since the 1960’s — but our population has increased less than 10%. We are losing farmland and forests at an alarming pace while stretching our water supply to the max.

Here on the outer edge of the sprawl, the Oakland Land Conservancy is buying up and otherwise protecting undeveloped land in order to keep it, well, undeveloped.

And in the case of Upland Hills Farm, to protect the land, they are working with the county, the state, the farmer/landowner and…the United States Green Burial Council.

Death to sprawl, anyone?

Green burials

Joe Sehee, the executive director of USGBC, didn’t grow up talking excitedly about death au naturel. Though he now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, he was born in Detroit. He has been, at various points in his life, a Jesuit lay minister, a Peabody Award-winning journalist and a national fellow at the Environmental Leadership Program.

In some ways, all his work led him to the world of green burials; one of the few places where environmentalism and spiritualism intersect.

He explains the growing attraction that people—including, memorably, Six Feet Under’s Nate Fisher, who buried his shrouded wife under a Joshua tree—are having to the concept of returning to the earth un-embalmed and un-casketed: “It’s your last act on earth, and it has almost religious implications. It can connect you—it’s far bigger than just buying a burial plot.”

But what is green burial? Is it even legal to just put a body in the ground? Won’t it contaminate the groundwater? And, by the way, ew.

The basic tenets of green burial call for no embalming and the use of a casket or container that will decompose (i.e., shrouds, cardboard or simple wooden caskets).

Embalming hasn’t always been the norm. It was Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train that brought the chemistry to the masses – and what’s ironic is that refrigeration actually renders embalming totally unnecessary. The European Union has announced a outright ban on formaldehyde as of 2010, citing its carcinogenic qualities. In the U.S., embalming fluid is required by law only in extremely rare circumstances, still grieving families are convinced by the funeral industry to do it. Why? Because the process can up the price by nearly $3,000.

Sehee sees embalming as one more way that death has become commoditized. “People need to be able to reclaim and reinvent rituals.” He feels like the status quo “makes people deal with someone who is a salesperson. The body is whisked away…”

Another purely wasteful aspect of the modern burial are the containers. Coffins are one thing, the concrete vault in which the coffin is placed is another. No laws call for their use, yet they have become ubiquitous with burials.

Sehee often uses the following statistic in presentations: Each year in the United States, coffins and vaults result in more metal being put in the ground than was used to make the Golden Gate Bridge, and enough concrete to build a two-lane highway from New York to Detroit.

Break on through to the greener side

The growing trend in home funerals attests to people – particularly baby boomers – rejecting this norm. “This is the same generation that changed birth,” Sehee observes, citing an increase in midwives and fathers involved with child-rearing. “That’s what is happening here – they are asking why they can’t be more involved. Sustainability is one good reason [for green burials], but there is much more that is beneficial to the individual.”

As for the concern about groundwater contamination, there has been extensive real-world experience on burial techniques, pioneered in this country by Dr. Billy Campbell, one of Sehee’s mentors. Campbell, a physician and cemeterian, opened Ramsey Creek Preserve natural burial ground in South Carolina in 1998. Campbell has found that filling in graves with twigs and sticks creates “channels” that encourages decomposed matter to rise to the surface of the soil and that mounding techniques similar to those common to those of Native Americans compensates for the natural tendency of graves to sink.

At natural cemeteries, graves are sometimes marked with flat stones and/or native plantings. If not marked, gravesites are found with the help of GPS systems. The preserve-like setting lends itself to hiking and picnicking, a pleasant place to pay homage to a loved one that has passed.

Attempts to bring the concept of green burials to the mainstream funeral industry failed in the past, which is what prompted the creation of USGBC in 2005. Sehee is attempting to learn from the movement’s failures and is engaging consumers and the funeral industry. Sehee’s board includes not only ecologists and environmentalists, but a representative from AARP. They work extensively with the funeral industry to make standards amenable, plausible yet still true to the “green” ideals they espouse. “We want to engage them, not threaten them,” Sehee says.

In Sehee’s neck of the woods, USGBC has certified its first conservation burial ground in the Galisteo Basin of Santa Fe. The organization is now working to establish green cremation standards, which will require carbon offsetting for emissions generated during cremation and the removal of mercury fillings prior to cremation.

Eco Development

With hopes of certifying one natural or conservation burial ground in each state, Sehee has found a golden opportunity here in his home state of Michigan. An old friend who is involved with the Upland Hills School alerted him to the site.

There are a few reasons the property is ideal for the concept. First, the landowner, Steve Webster, is an environmentally-conscious sort that likes the idea of his property never being developed into a subdivision or golf course. He admits, “If I got offered big bucks, I might do it (sell it to a developer), but I’d much rather see something good happen.”

His parents started the farm in 1965, armed with socialist, cooperative organic ideals. Today, the 50-acre farm serves as an agricultural demonstration to young school children, teaching kids from all over Metro Detroit about chickens and eggs, lambs and wool, and where butter comes from.

What drew the Oakland Land Conservancy into the mix of interested parties is Upland Hills’ prime habitat location. It sits in the armpit of Addison Oaks County Park and Bald Mountain State Recreation Area, making it an important corridor for wildlife.

The role that green burials can play in this conservation is as a funding mechanism. In these days of diminished federal and state funds for land acquisition, shrewd thinking like this becomes mandatory. Sehee says, “Land conservation used to be between two parties. Now, it’s the state, the county, donors and landowners.”

The OLC can place a legal mechanism called a conservation easement on the property, ensuring that whatever limited development – including the green burial ground – is planned for the land, it sticks to the tenets of the agreed-upon master plan. Basically, it can’t get flipped in ten years.

Master planning for the Upland Hills land has just begun, but some basic concepts being considered are that the farm itself would remain, operated by Oakland County as an educational facility. The green burial grounds would occupy about 10 acres. All of these things facilitate the strict habitat conservation of 50-100 acres of the land.

Webster sees this as the evolution of environmentalism to sustainability. As a businessperson – albeit one with a pretty healthy communion with the earth – he says, “I have to watch my bottom line. Sustainability is about that too.”

Yes, in Michigan

The boon for Michigan is that there is burgeoning evidence that this type of development can be a tool for economic development. AARP is getting increasingly involved in the issue of the death care industry as its numbers swell with take-charge Boomers.

Sehee observes, “They’ve transformed every cultural milestone and they care about the planet and their legacy. At Ramsey Creek, two-thirds of the burials come from out-of-state.”

Although no law currently precludes natural burials, he is beginning to work with state legislators to incentivize the operation – another nudge, instead of push, to the funeral industry.

One of Sehee’s favorite quotes comes from USGBC board member William Jordan III, an ecologist widely credited with coining the term “restoration ecology.” In his book, The Sunflower Forest, he writes, “Ultimately, the future of a natural ecosystem depends not on protection from humans but on its relationship with the people who inhabit it.”