Today on NPR I heard a story about green burials. Journalist, Mark Harris has written a book called "Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial".

Listen to the interview here. Find the book online here or order it from a local bookseller such as Macs Backs and keep the dollars in the local economy.

What I found fascinating was the discussion of the Ramsey Creek Preserve.

Here's their mission:

 "Memorial nature parks are memorial parks specifically designed to save and restore significant wildlands. These parks will be a convenient, economical, beautiful, environmentally responsible and mainstream alternative to existing memorial parks.

   As outlined in the History, the link between land protection and death care is neither new nor unique to this country. Unfortunately modern cemeteries all too often destroy natural landscapes and chew up valuable open space: creating fertilized and herbicided, environments with dense interments and plastic flowers. A tremendous amount of money goes into expensive “leak-proof” caskets, vaults and mausoleum crypts, and to “perpetual care”. The average cost of funeral, burial space, casket and vault is now exceeding $5,000, and can go considerably higher.

   In our park, a significant part of the burial space expense goes to purchasing, restoring and maintaining real nature parks. Burials and ashes scatterings occur in these parks, but the interments must be natural, “dust to dust” burials (see related article on natural burials): no toxic embalming fluids, no vaults, and only biodegradable caskets. Because these are often the very expensive items, the total funeral costs for burial at Ramsey Creek Preserve are much less expensive than current averages. Because the total number of burials is strictly limited, far fewer interments occur than at usual memorial parks."

Fascinating!!! Keepin’ it green… even in death.

This holiday season, what could be better than the gift of land? Check out this article about a wonderful gift of conservation in Northeast Ohio from the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation and lift a glass to their forward thinking grantmaking policies.

I wonder if it is appropriate to send thank you notes to foundations even when you are not the direct recipient. Perhaps we could let the Foundation know how grateful we are for their action. I remember slathering praise on Bill Ginn when I was introduced to him once at a rather large public event. What I knew about him is that he had saved huge tracts of land east of Cleveland in Geauga County with a personal loan of 4 million dollars. No harm done there. He blushed and said, “You’re welcome.” The point is that this gift of conservation is a gift to the place we all live.

Remember that song we sang in elementary school? This land is your land, this land is my land? This land is not just ours, but everyone’s to appreciate and protect. We can all sleep more soundly, breathe more easily knowing that someone can save our land from the indignities perpetrated by sprawling development.