One of the advantages of using a Memorial Ecosystems preserve for burial is the potential for saving money whilst putting the money you do spend to work for the environment.
The cost of a space in a Memorial Ecosystems preserve will be about what you would expect to pay for a burial space in an urban area. That is where the cost similarities begin and end. Most cemeteries in the States require leak proof vaults, durable caskets, and expensive grave markers. According to industry sources, the average cost of a casket runs around $2,100, and a vault over $700. Even flush brass and granite markers can cost $1,000. Elaborate ceremonies can cost thousands of dollars more. Some chains will promote cheaper burial spaces as a loss leader to attract clients for the more expensive add-on items.
Memorial Ecosystems does not require vaults and durable caskets. In fact, our 'dust to dust', cycle of life approach does not allow such items (unless required by state law - not a problem in most states). Biodegradable caskets are much less expensive than durable ones. A lot of people are unaware that because of public health concerns, even cremation requires a simple casket. These same caskets can be used for burial. The least expensive ones, made of reinforced cardboard, cost dealers as little as $20. Simple pine boxes are also much less expensive than average. Memorial Ecosystems is currently searching for a company that can guarantee that the wood and paper used to make the caskets comes from ecologically sustainable sources.
Our preserves will not create giant parking lots, and some of our more sensitive burial areas will not allow large ceremonies at the grave side. Such time and space limitations encourage small, simple (and less expensive) ceremonies, but certainly leave open the possibility of a more elaborate memorial service some time after burial.
The advantages of a burial in a Memorial Ecosystems preserve go beyond the cost savings. We are specifically designing our preserves to be real, scenic nature preserves. We earmark enough of the funds to land purchase and infrastructure development so as to ensure that interment densities are low, and that large areas of the preserve will have no interments at all. Your commitment to purchasing a burial space here ensures that this land will be protected, studied and enjoyed from now on. A part of the purchase price will be committed to conservation work in the watershed. In the case of Ramsey Creek, we hope to purchase an adjacent wetland complex with these funds.
The end result will be a functioning nature preserve that will be a pleasant place to visit. This is really a key point.
Not only does buying a space here help the environment, and provide open space for future generations, it is a place that you can enjoy with your family while you are alive. We are building trail systems with rest areas ideal for family outings, wildlife observation and quiet contemplation. After its construction, our beautiful all faiths chapel will be available for memorial services, but will also be available to clients for other appropriate uses such as weddings, sunrise services, etc. While we think that some public use - especially for education and research - is appropriate and desirable, the preserves will not be open for unregulated public use (see our environmental and social commitment plan, and our rules and regulations). This means that we will ensure that our clients and their families will be able to have a quality experience when they decide to visit. And when you purchase a spot at one of our preserves, it means that you will have preferential use of any of our subsequent preserves. If after you have bought a space, we open another preserve that is more convenient or more desirable to you, you may transfer your interment rights to the new park (if the new plot is more expensive, you might have to pay the difference).
We also think that our life history archiving service (included in the purchase price) is of great value. Every client can submit one page of biographical or other information, along with one photo for a permanently archived life history that will be maintained on paper and on durable computer media. For a fee, we will also create and maintain larger archives, including multimedia, for those who might want to archive voice, music, or other interests, the fee depending on the size of the archive. All of the information will be put on CD, along with preserve information, photographs, etc. The CDs may be purchased by clients and families.
The visitor's centre will also be equipped with a computer that will be able to show all interment locations given a name query. And while the $1,950 we charge for a plot might sound like a lot of money (about the cost of a mid-range PC), we can arrange for a payment plan to fit your budget. We do offer spots for cremation scattering (life history archiving included) for $500.
Memorial Ecosystems will allow non-intrusive monumentation, but we do not require it. We encourage clients to see a healthy nature preserve as their real monument. Because the density of burials in Memorial Ecosystems preserves is so much lower than usual commercial cemeteries, finding the interment area will be much easier. Some will choose to forgo a traditional marker, and will choose a natural feature such as a boulder or tree. At the Ramsey Creek Preserve, former owners gathered rocks from the forest floor for building materials. At this preserve, we will allow engraved natural flat stones (from the same geological strata) - to mark the graves and as a component of our restoration ecology programme. We are also developing contacts with craftspeople that are interested in using the native stones to create natural, non-intrusive art pieces. Interments in Memorial Ecosystems preserves will be accurately mapped to ensure that all graves - even those with no hard marker - are easy to find.
Memorial Ecosystems, 113 Retreat Street, Westminster, SC 29693, USA (tel 864 647 7798; fax 864 647 7796; e-mail: www.memorialecosystems.com).
The Natural Death Centre would like to hear about any woodland burial grounds in the States. One of the first such nature reserves seems to be Memorial Ecosystems' 'Ramsey Creek Preserve' nature park at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Western South Carolina.
The main differences from those in the UK seem to be that firstly it is considerably more expensive (at $1,950 for the burial plot) - which is surprising as US land prices are no doubt generally lower than in the UK - and secondly that it is allowing memorial stones, albeit of an artistic nature, rather than simply having trees as memorials.
The Natural Death Centre is also in favour of the human scale and wary of those who set up branches in a number of locations or who franchise a concept - which is Memorial Ecosystem's intention.
But aside from these quibbles, the concept sounds to have been excellently thought through.
Natural Death Centre, 6 Blackstock Mews, Blackstock Road, London N4 2BT, UK (tel 020 7359 8391; fax 020 7354 3831 e-mail: rhino@dial.pipex.com; web: www.naturaldeath.org.uk).
Adapted from an e-mail to the Natural Death Centre from Billy Campbell of Memorial Ecosystems.
I feel that the Natural Death Centre is definitely a kindred spirit. I would like to offer some response to the thought provoking concerns in your review. I would also like to offer some thoughts about your approach (although with the degree of your success, it doesn't look like you need much help).
In a European context, most of it could be considered ancient woodland, even if the trees themselves are not ancient. In general, our burials are between existing trees, and tree planting is not an option. Because downed trees are an important part of the forest ecosystem, we are committed to leaving nature alone - downed trees will be replaced by smaller trees naturally growing in the understory, and not replanted artificially. In areas of pine, those trees are entering accelerated natural mortality. It is very possible that the tree nearest a grave will not be there in 20 years.
Our entire intensive, computer-assisted mapping project was to improve the comfort level of those potential clients that might not consider a grave marked only by a tree or by wildflowers, and who were fearful of not being able to find the grave of a loved one. However, in a cultural context where ostentatious funerals are the rule (the average funeral and burial in South Carolina is pushing $8,000), and where traditions (if only a few generations old) die hard, we found that we risked losing a large number of potential clients without at least the option of some minimal type of stone marker.
We decided that any such markers should be made of stone from the same geological strata as the preserve. It was when we started scouting for sources of native stone that we found that the preserve was stone poor, unlike the neighbour's land just next door. It then occurred to me that two of the previous landowners (including me) had gathered forest stones for fireplaces, stone walls, fill for a patio, paths, foundations, etc. I remembered at the time that I was gathering rocks how often I would disturb ant colonies, snake eggs and various small mammal and invertebrate homes. I had considered writing an article at the time about the ecological sins of gathering stones, and had started looking for a source of quarried stone.
It turns out that stones do have a very important ecological role in most temperate forests. Ants in particular benefit from an ample supply of stones. According to Holldobler and Wilson (1990), stones provide cover for establishing colonies, and (when flat and shallow) are important for colony thermoregulation, and overall colony success. Ants are now understood to be major players in forests, with impressive total biomass/acre. They are important distributors of certain wild flower seeds. In fact, Pudlo et al (1980) reported that ants might distribute "as much as 70 per cent" of the flora of mesic forests of the temperate areas of the world.
Our preserve consulting biologist, Dr L. L. Gaddy, published a report based on his research in our area of the US that gives credence to Pudlo's conjecture (Gaddy, 1986). Ants do more than just spread seed and are involved in plant pollination and protection as well (Beattie, 1985). They are also important for some other invertebrates and host the larva of the lycaenid butterflies (blues and hairstreaks). I understand that in the UK, the big blues are pretty much extirpated, and I wonder what role the enclosure acts (and subsequent stone gathering) had on them. It is interesting that in certain ecological restoration efforts in the US, ant diversity has lagged, perhaps because we have not paid enough attention to restoring the forest and prairie floor structure.
In any event, we have come to the conclusion that, at least in the case of Ramsey Creek, returning stones to the forest floor is a good thing ecologically. As we will suggest later, this may be an example of where your organisation could possibly benefit from greater integration with the academic restoration ecology community. Obviously, ecological context is important when it comes to issues such as whether to use stone markers. The questions about naturalness and aesthetics remain.
Density is obviously an issue. At Ramsey Creek, we will allow no more than 1,500 or so burials, depending on the number of [ash] cremains we get. Not everyone will want a stone. With our non-profit watershed conservation endowment fund, we should be able to add land to the preserve bringing the total acreage to 45-60 acres. The interment density here will be about 1/60th to 1/30th that of contemporary cemeteries in the US (counting conservation land purchased with our conservation fund money). Even a thousand additional stones on that many acres should not be obtrusive - if the designs are subtle, and work with indigenous material. We have also been concerned about people tramping off trail, and are requiring that most burials be near trails and are restricting grave visitation for certain 'back country' burials.
We have decided that most of the stones should be flat and horizontal to the ground. This is more valuable ecologically and less obtrusive. We have also decided that the stones should match the natural stones on the property. This might not be the best thing ecologically, since our area suffers from acid precipitation. It might be better to use limestone, despite the fact that it would look less natural. We are finding that stones are generally available from the grave itself.
The question of human artifice is one that we are still struggling with. My original idea was that it should be more of a Zen garden approach - all stone markers that would appear to be completely natural stones. We are pushing this option and will provide a digital photo of the stones along with other archived information, including life history and exact location. But what about the role of art? Is there a role for an object that has been obviously manipulated by a human? I find it interesting that a lot of environmentalists and I shrink from this idea, whilst we greatly admire the petroglyphs in the American Southwest and the Dreamtime art in Australia. Perhaps this is because we see the cultures that produced the art as a part of nature, and from a time when the art was in a lonely landscape dominated by non-human nature. In a world totally reworked by humans, the need to 're-wild' a part of it may explain our personal aversion.
But while we don't want carved angels and sheep dotting the landscape, is there something to be said for creating a new kind of cemetery art, using indigenous materials that is also ecologically functional? In our preserves, people's bodies are literally becoming a part of nature. Is there a way to heighten the sense of sacred space and of 'man in nature' rather than 'man apart from nature' other than banning all direct evidence of humanity? We are still looking for answers. One approach we are considering is to fund a project by local college design students. We are interested in comments on this issue.
We feel that our for-profit status aside (we address the issue of concerns over for-profit status in an article in our online newsletter), we can learn from The Nature Conservancy and other such groups. In fact, we have already included community involvement and outreach into our operating plan. We are sharing our intensive biological surveys online, and will open the preserve for local school field trips and researchers. We are also designating five per cent of our gross receipts to a non-profit watershed conservation endowment fund that will purchase land and conservation easements, will fund erosion control and will monitor stream quality for local governments. We are also aspiring to work co-operatively with local groups and churches to ensure that the preserves will have strong local constituencies. In our own preserves, we hope that the preserve boards will evolve to manage the preserves long term.
While human scale is important, it is by no means the only (or even most important) scale to consider when developing a nature preserve cemetery. Natural scales are obviously very important, and are ecosystem dependent. And while some decentralisation has its human scale advantages, without some consistent standards, excessive decentralisation can lead to less than optimum impacts on the natural environment.
England is one of the least forested countries in Europe. It lost a significant share of its original diversity, including most of the megafauna and area-sensitive forest species centuries ago. In this context, restoring small-forested areas could generally be expected to have a measurable positive effect, as long as some diverse ancient meadow is not shaded into oblivion by a monoculture of oaks, however lovely (this is actually one of our more serious concerns about your projects - that they might in some contexts do more ecological damage than good if not carefully selected and implemented). In looking at the listing of woodland cemeteries on the Natural Death Centre web page, most of the sites were less than ten acres, with many less than five acres. The social context is also important: in the U.K., the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, along with subsequent amendments, gave some measure of predictability to where more natural areas would remain long term (including greenbelts, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, etc). With such stability, and without the need to consider area-sensitive forest species, the preserves do not have to 'stand on their own' as much as they might in a less regulated landscape with species dependent on larger forest stands.
In the US, the ecological and social contexts mean that preserves must generally be larger to have a meaningful impact. In the state of South Carolina, some 60 per cent of the total landscape is now forested, although millions of acres of the forest consist of low diversity pine plantations and naturally regenerating forests on old cotton fields. Thousands of acres of natural hardwood forest - those that have never been ploughed - are converted each year to housing developments, golf courses, roads and the like, or are bulldozed and replanted to pine monocultures. Land use planning is done county by county, and most counties have no zoning whatsoever. It is entirely possible that a preserve could be completely surrounded at some point by sprawl development. Area-dependent fauna is also a greater concern. Black bear regularly use forest within four miles of the Ramsey Creek Preserve and area sensitive neo-tropical bird species are also resident.
The situation has led one of the leading conservationists in the state to proclaim that nature preserves of less than a thousand acres are of suspect value. The conservation biology community generally recognises preserves under 2,000 hectares as 'small preserves' that require special management because of the small size. It is true that critics have undervalued the benefit of smaller preserves, especially for plant species. It is also true that very small preserves can be of great value, especially if they are strategically located - such as a small inholding in a National Forest, or along an otherwise protected wild and scenic river.
Considering that land in the county where the Ramsey Creek Preserve is located now sells for $2,000-$10,000+ per acre (stream frontage, motorised access and location near metro areas demand the higher prices), the effort to establish a 200 acre preserve in the outskirts of a major metro area (where a green belt should be) could become a multi-million dollar project. However, considering that most new contemporary cemeteries in the US cost substantially more than 1 million dollars, and that the industry now brings in some 25 billion dollars per year in the US (expected to nearly double in 30 years), the nature conservation community cannot shrink from the task because the economic scale is a bit scary. In fact, when attempting to compete with entrenched, well financed, multibillion dollar chains like Lowen and Service Corporation, gaining some economies of scale could be important in gaining market share and in ensuring that a greater portion of collections go to programmatic work.
In the Southern US, at least, very small scale (1-10 acres) entry into the market by existing cemeteries and landowners could result in a fragmentation of the nature preserve cemetery market and much less than optimum results for landscape protection. This would be particularly true without enforceable standards for land selection, interment density, land restoration practices, and so forth. The public is generally ill equipped to tell a well thought-out nature preserve cemetery from one that is actually degrading the land where it is located. And as the Natural Death Centre has probably already noted, it is also much harder to monitor practices in dozens of small, scattered preserves than in several larger ones. If we have any criticism of the Nature Death Centre (and as we mentioned above, in the UK context, these criticisms are probably not as valid as they would be for a similar organisational structure here), it would be that the organisation appears to be a bit too ad hoc, lacking a comprehensive set of guidelines for land selection, management and monitoring. We would also recommend that the Natural Death Centre forge tighter links with the scientific conservation biology community.
Lastly, while our prices are more expensive than in the UK, we do provide a free casket, and can help arrange a funeral that will cost about half of what the average funeral now costs here. We also do commit 25 per cent of the funds for land purchase and infrastructure development, restoration and watershed work (the latter including creating a non-profit land trust). Currently all profits after operating expenses go to establishing new preserves, and we hope eventually to put over 50 per cent of our collections into programmatic work.
We are concerned about promoting a generally less expensive and less wasteful option. In our community, it seems that those who can least afford it are often the ones spending the most. However, our emphasis remains on lessening the ecological impact of grave digging and visitation. Consequently, we would rather sell a smaller number of more expensive plots than sell a much higher number of cheaper plots. We feel that we are striking a balance by offering an option that is significantly less expensive than average, but keeping interment densities at a small fraction of the usual.
Curthoys, Lesley, 1998, Ramsey Canyon Preserve, Arizona: 'A Case Study in Successful Small Protected Area Management', Natural Areas Journal, Vol.18 (1), p.28-37.
Gaddy, L. L., 1986. 'Twelve new ant dispersed species from the Southern Appalachians', Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, vol.113, No.3, pp.247-251.
Holldobler, Wilson, E. O., 1990, The Ants. Harvard University Press.
Pudlo, R.J., A. J. Beattie, and D. C. Culver, 1980. Population consequences of changes in ant-seed mutualism in Sanguinaria canadensis. Oecologia 146:32-37
Billy Campbell has provided an interesting perspective on Memorial Ecosystem's thinking. I don't agree with the comments about 'excessive decentralisation' in the UK movement for green burial. In the Association of Nature Reserve's code of practice, item 1 insists that each woodland burial site must get the approval of its local environmental and archaeological organisations - this seems far more in tune with ecological diversity than trying to lay down national criteria that cannot be as sensitive to local concerns.
Campbell writes that the Association "could possibly benefit from greater integration with the academic restoration ecology community" - in practice the Association tends to refer woodland burial grounds to the AB Welfare and Wildlife Trust for detailed advice and consultancy, and their knowledge of the subject is second to none. However, the Association is looking for an ecological research student who would like to make a nationwide study of the various woodland burial grounds, with recommendations for each one on what, if anything, they could do to heighten their standards still further.
The Natural Death Handbook contains a section of tips, ecological and practical, for those setting up woodland burial grounds. In the UK, some of these new sites are presently farmer's set-aside fields which will gradually become woodland as the site develops. Since it is UK government policy to double woodland cover in the UK, this seems as good a way as any of creating woodland that will be well cared for.
It is also the best possible deterrent to those planning new motorways through rural areas, as John Bradfield has pointed out. Bodies buried on the route are far harder to move, legally and emotionally, than a few protesters in tunnels. I am still not convinced by Campbell's argument in favour of memorials, which he says are "to improve the comfort level of those potential clients that might not consider a grave marked only by a tree or by wild flowers". The Natural Death Centre's response would be that this is the essence of the concept and not to be lightly surrendered. You cannot fill the countryside with memorial stones for the indefinite future - but reforestation can continue for the longest term.
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