An amazing array of organizations — park districts, cities, land trusts, and other nonprofit conservation organizations — are busy protecting the last, best places in Northeast Ohio. Given the pace of development, it's a race against time. We are in danger of losing the richness of our natural heritage — the diversity of plants and animals and habitats that make our region special and contribute so much to our quality of life.
This section will cover efforts to identify and protect important places in the region. (Please note that farmland preservation — the preservation of the region's working rural lands — is addressed in the Food section as part of thinking about a regional food system.)
“East meets west meets north meets south.” That mouthful of a sentence describes why Northeast Ohio is such a treasure trove of natural diversity. Four uniquely different communities meet right here in the Cleveland/Akron/Canton region—the Alleghenies, prairies, northern hemlock hardwood forests and Appalachians. Throw in Lake Erie and you have the fixings for a naturalist’s paradise.
— David Kriska, Cleveland Museum of Natural History
and when I die...
Susan Miller Says: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.
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