Natural cemeteries

New Zealand’s first natural cemetery opened in 2008 on the windy slopes of Makara in Wellington. Others are planned around the country.

Instead of headstones set in a neatly manicured lawn, natural cemeteries are usually planted with trees which grow to create a park. That’s the plan for Makara: plots are planted with native trees and bodies are buried as close as possible to the active soil layer (usually one metre deep) to aid nature’s recycling.

Mark Blackham from Natural Burials, the company that set up Makara cemetery with the Wellington City Council, says there’s room for up to several hundred plots. Since it opened in March 2008, 12 people have been buried there; 100 more have registered for burial.

Coming to a town near you

Several councils have plans to open natural cemeteries. Wanganui District Council is looking at options to provide natural burials at Aramoho cemetery. Neighbouring New Plymouth District Council has earmarked land at Oakura Cemetery for natural burials.

Further south, Kapiti, Tasman and Christchurch councils are also looking at natural options. Tasman District Council’s plans are the most advanced, with land at Motueka cemetery identified for use as a natural burial site.

Auckland’s Waikumete Cemetery offers a variation on natural burials. A small area, enough for 17 plots, has been set aside for “eco burials”. If you’re buried here you can have a tree planted to the side of the grave.

The rise of the natural-burial movement

US-based writer Jessica Mitford can take some of the credit for the rise of the natural-burial movement. Her 1963 exposé of the American funeral industry argued that the modern-day undertaker had commodified death. Funerals had become a business where bigger was better – from the size of the coffin to the size of the “floral tribute”.

Natural burials appeal to those left cold by the thought of being chemically preserved in an oversized box when they die. The concept first took hold in the UK where there are now 200 natural cemeteries open or planned. Canada and the US have also got in on the act.

Lynda Hannah, who runs Motueka funeral company Living Legacies, visited 30 natural burial parks in 2007 as part of a Winston Churchill Memorial Fellowship. Some were definitely “greener” than others, she said, but all were an improvement on New Zealand’s “straight-line concrete cemeteries”.