There's an increasing trend in choosing Memorial Tree Forests or other green burial options over traditional cemeteries. In stark contrast to the manicured lawns and rows and rows of headstones in traditional cemeteries, many people see Memorial Forests as both more environmentally friendly and attractive.
Memorial Forests are seeing a surge of interest. People love that their final act will help permanently preserve a forest. They also love the beauty of the locations. A beautiful location is increasingly important to people thinking about their final resting place.
Traditional casket burials take a significant toll on our environment with caskets, liners, concrete, and embalming fluid. Traditional cemeteries require ongoing lawn fertilizers, mowing and other invasive maintenance. Given recent reflections and considerations for our environment during this climate crisis, people are shifting towards greener and more economical burials.
One of the first things you'll notice about a Memorial Tree Forest is its abundance of beauty and wildlife. Many locations showcase wildflower meadows, natural woodland, and water features like ponds, lakes, or ocean views. Each is filled with diverse and complex but magnificent ecosystems - a sure testimony to a loved one's life.
Whether for natural burials or the spreading of ashes, Memorial Tree Forests resonate with more and more people every year as they look for meaning and a sense of connection with our natural spaces. The forest is the environmentally friendly option. Its teeming plant and animal life becomes a living legacy for a life well-lived, well-loved, and well-spent.
Say no to old ways that don't consider your preferences.
Choosing a burial or ashes scattering option that reflects your environmental values has become a global ethos of lowering waste and cutting carbon footprints while embracing the natural cycles of life. Even in death, making these greener choices shows an acknowledgment, if not a commitment, to repairing and replanting our world with oxygen-producing and life-supporting forests.
If you're not convinced yet, let's identify some of the reasons why the greener burial option might just be the right option for you or your loved one.
1. Sheer Natural Beauty
Memorial Forests are often located in beautiful, scenic settings. They represent highly attractive places for what will literally be a person’s eternity.
2. Help Preserve a Forest
Your last act can go far to help save a forest. Memorial forest management companies purchase forest lands usually owned by corporations, and then permanently conserve and protect them. Nature and wildlife continue to thrive with no threat of future development.
3. Your Family and Friends Have a Place to Mourn and Remember
An increasing societal challenge is when our ashes are spread, there is no longer a physical place for our loved ones and friends to visit to mourn, remember and grieve. This presents a challenge as those left behind process through the stages of grief.
Forests such as those managed by Better Place Forests, provide you a towering tree to scatter your ashes under. Only you or you and your family will use that tree. The tree provides a permanent place for you to be remembered as you become part of the earth beneath it. You have a permanent location for your loved ones and friends to visit while preserving the forest around it.
4. These forests make a safe and ideal replacement for those who feel disconnected from conventional burial places or excluded from them because of rising costs.
People are becoming more cost conscious, making wiser spending decisions in life, and increasingly concerning death. Natural burial costs are much lower than the national average, where you could spend as much as $9,000 for the average casket burial - without the cost of the plot. Or you could spend about $6,000 with Better Place Forests, receiving:
Tree
Fully customized memorial ceremony
Memorial marker
Additional 50 trees planted in reforestation efforts
Of course, prices increase with the amount of impact you're interested in making as well as the size and type of tree you'd like. But if you've got to spend the money anyway, protecting a forest becomes a pretty interesting option.
5. As people continue to reconnect with nature, they're seeking a life more synergistic, if not symbiotic, with the earth.
Memorial Tree Forests will grow for a long time. They will be cared for, looked after, and remain respected places for people to enjoy. As a result, survivors can seek comfort, whether by walking nearby or sitting in a loved one's presence, through meditation, or even by practicing forest bathing.
6. Trends are changing about death. Whether for religious or non-religious reasons, most people are straying from the traditional casket, liner, and headstone burial options.
People also increasingly want to be interred or have their ashes spread in a beautifully tranquil location. Not only is the movement cost-saving, but it's supporting environmentally-focused thinking and is protective of native forests.
Say yes to being environmentally forward-thinking.
Despite what scientists tell us about our climate and the known damage we're causing with traditional burial options, they're still common in many places. But that doesn't mean you need to make the same choices as others. It's okay to think outside the box on this one. Especially when it concerns a final, forever location.
7. Anyone can be buried in a lush Memorial Tree Forest. The options or locations are ever-increasing.
At Better Place Forests, your cremated ashes are mixed with the soil, placed beneath a healthy tree in a big, beautiful forest, and then given a marker to indicate to loved ones where to find your remains.
Locations are expanding from the west coast to the east coast.
The Living Urn works a little differently in that your cremated remains are mixed directly in with the soil of a sapling—not a fully grown tree.
Your family can choose to plant your tree in a nearby location (yard) or inter your remains in any one of their forests located throughout the United States.
Willow-Witt Ranch in Southern Oregon offers full-body burial for those who would rather forego the cremation process altogether. There, your body will be buried in a shroud or native wood casket, then lowered into the ground.
Friends and family sometimes participate in these ceremonies, which may include digging, lowering the body, and planting flowers.
8. Companies like Better Place Forests offer a unique opportunity to honor those important to you, whether they are still alive or gone.
These tributes – purchasing nearby trees for loved ones’ future use - are gradually becoming more common, not only because cremation is a rising option but because families are spreading far and wide, frequently unable to travel for funerals.
Additionally, they offer survivors a serene place for respite and to visit their loved ones, knowing the forest will grow and thrive for a very, very long time.
9. Increasingly, people and agencies advocate for green burials, making the idea more acceptable and okay to talk about with friends and family.
For instance, one such agency, the Green Burial Council, was created on behalf of those who prefer the environmentally friendly burial option.
As leaders, their mission is to advocate for death care, ensuring everyone has access to all available information about environmental possibilities. They're also actively developing educational resources so you can make well-informed end-of-life planning.
Making the Green Burial Choice
Choosing a green burial over a traditional one takes a lot of thought and consideration, especially since we've become so detached from death as a natural, normal process. Death has become scary when it should be seen as the next, or final step in life.
If your choice leans green, consider an alternative to the wasteful practices of casket and embalming funerals. Memorial Tree Forests are the more sustainable option for burials, but they're also one of the best opportunities for rebuilding forests while leaving a long-lasting legacy.