Melanie Kramer Multimedia
He began walking down the leaf-covered gravel road and there sat his truck. It was covered with a film of white dust and had wet leaves stuck to the tires.
The sign on the side said:
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Ashes 2 Roots
Roots 2 Trees
Trees 2 Forest
As he neared the trail for the EcoEternity Forest at Camp Makemie, Jack Lowe said in a soft-spoken voice, “Not everyone gets it,” referring to his private co-venture EcoEternity.
Mark Harris, a former environmental columnist and author of “Grave Matters: A Journey through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial” says “green” burial encompasses returning remains to the earth as directly and simply as possible. It avoids embalming, metal caskets and burial vaults and returns to was once standard burial practice in America – “to allow the body at death to rejoin the elements it sprang from, to use what remains of a life to regenerate new life, to return dust to dust.”
In the 1990s Lowe worked in Germany with Axel Baudach at an American IT company. In 1993 Baudach began a “green” burial concept, in Switzerland and it eventually expanded to Germany and Korea. In 2006 they co-founded EcoEternity in the U.S., and the first “established forest,” or burial site, was begun in October 2007. EcoEternity places cremated ashes in a biodegradable urn made of cornstarch, and buries it at the roots of a tree in a designated woodland area.
There are now three burial sites in the U.S. Two of the sites are in Virginia, all are on church owned land. The first established site is near Middleburg, Va., on 2.5 acres owned by the Methodist Church. The church primarily uses the land for a Christian summer camp called Camp Highroad. The other “forest cemetery” is owned by the Presbyterian Church and also operates as a Christian summer camp, called Camp Makemie. It is located between Richmond and Williamsburg, Va. The Diascund Reservoir surrounds the 4-acre point of land used as the cemetery. According to the Virginia Department of Inland Fisheries, the Diascund Reservoir is a 1,110 acre water supply reservoir for Newport News, Va.
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photo by Melanie Kramer A sign marks the beginning of the trail at Camp Makemie. No headstones are permitted, but each tree bears a plaque listing the names of people who's ashes are buried at its base. |
There is one other cemetery, Pocono Plateau, which is located near Allentown and Scranton, Pa. The 2.5 acre cemetery is owned by the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference and United Methodist Church. Pocono Plateau also operates a Christian camp.
EcoEternity leases the land from the churches for 99 years. “That’s the longest you can lease anything in any state,” says Lowe. Landowners in turn have a contract with EcoEternity to keep the land safe from deforestation for the designated 99 years.
EcoEternity offers three options for leasing a tree. First is a “community” tree where the deceased are unknown to each other. The second is a “friendship” tree for friends who want to be buried together and the third is a “family” tree just for members of a family. Each tree can only have up to 15 urns buried beneath it and the trees are designated with royal blue ribbons. The price of leasing a tree can cost anywhere from $600 to $20,000 and varies based on which option of tree the customer chooses, the species, its age, and its location in the forest. Josh Johns, the naturalist for Camp Highroad, explained the varying costs of trees: “A young small tree is cheaper than a large established tree right along the trail.” He points to one of the largest, most noticeable trees in the cemetery and said it’s the most expensive tree in Camp Highroad’s forest. "It's a $20,000 family tree," he said