GREEN CEMETERIES AS A CONSERVATION STRATEGY

BACKGROUND

The Galisteo Basin Preserve, located 15 miles south of Santa Fe, in New Mexico is employing various techniques to preserve a 12,800-acre parcel which is blanketed by a patchwork of piñon and juniper forests and blue grama grasslands. The Commonweal Conservancy is working with the community and State of New Mexico to protect this land, by developing a portion of the land, approximately 800, with a mixed use development to help preserve the rest of the parcel.

RELEVANCE

A novel approach to fund-raising for the conservation of open space is being implemented at the Galisteo Basin Preserve. Many residents of Pinetop-Lakeside have voiced that they would like the Woodland Lake Park Tract to remain open space, however strategies to accomplish this have been not so forth coming. This technique for acquiring open space is also being implemented near major metropolitan areas in Texas.

GREEN BURIALS AT THE GALISTEO BASIN PRESERVE

Joe Sehee, executive director of the Green Burial Council is working with the Commonweal Conservancy to help finance the project with the creation of a four-hectare green cemetery where people can choose to be buried in an environmentally friendly way without embalming fluids and in biodegradable shrouds or wooden boxes. Roughly half the cost of a US $4,000 plot would help protect the surrounding landscape.

Green burials may prove to be a potential new tool to finance conservation and stewardship. Sehee's long-term vision is that land trusts would use green burials to protect one million acres worldwide in the next decade. An important step in making this a reality, he says, is the council's adoption last summer of certifiable standards. Much like standards for green-harvested wood or fair-trade coffee, the burial standards are designed to ensure that consumers get what they pay for when they sign up for a green burial. Sehee is hoping the same people who would choose a green burial will also see the value in this unusual approach to land protection.

The first modern-day green cemetery in the U.S. was created in 1998 when South Carolina physician Billy Campbell founded Ramsey Creek Preserve, a socially responsible for-profit green cemetery that links land conservation with burials. The death of his father and the associated funeral costs led Campbell to found the preserve as a better way to honor the dead. Sehee joined forces with Campbell and a third party for a green burial project in California,’ Fernwood’ which turned out to be less green than they wanted.  Sehee was convinced certifiable green burial standards were needed to protect the integrity of the idea. The Green Burial Council was the result. Under the council's standards, the ’greenest’ cemetery is part of a larger conservation project in which burials help buy easements and pay for stewardship. Toxic embalming, cement vaults, and other non-biodegradable caskets are prohibited, as are inappropriate monuments. A less-prohibitive ‘natural’ burial ground bars embalming and vaults and requires habitat restoration with native plants but does not involve a larger protection scheme. 

One barrier to green burials as a conservation tool may be the ‘ick’ factor the necessity of dealing with the funeral home industry and the reaction that ‘there are dead people on our property.’

DESIGN IMPLICATIONS

• Contact the Green Burial Council and the Commonweal Conservancy to assess the appropriateness for Pinetop-Lakeside.
• Contact the Arizona State Parks Department to discuss their interest in this concept.
• Have an appraisal done of the parcel by an independent appraiser so all parties will have an idea of the value of the land.

COMMONWEAL CONSERVANCY 

117 N. Guadalupe Street  Suite C 

Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501

phone: 505-982-0071  

fax: 505-982-0270

web: http://www.commonwealconservancy.org/contact.php

GREEN BURIAL COUNCIL 

Email:  info@greenburialcouncil.org  

web:  http://greenburialcouncil.org/faqs.php