The Centre for Natural Burial

The Eastbourne Herald

ona Bay residents Sola Freeman and Mark Blackham have received permission from Wellington City Council for plots at Makara Cemetary for those wishing to bury loved ones naturally.

Ms Freeman says they first had the idea when they lost their baby in 1999. “I couldn’t bear the thought of our baby going into a concrete cemetary,” she says.

With no option for a natural burial, she and husband Mark Blackham began to investigate a way to hold burials in land where natural coffins or shrouds could be used and trees planted so that families and friends could have somewhere to visit and remember their dead.

Mr Blackham says they approached several local authorities, but in the end worked with WCC because they have been the most “progressive, helpful and interested in making this option avialable”.

He says the organisation has been contacted by more than twenty Eastbourne residents about the issue over the past year; but so far attempts to establish a natural burial cemetary in the Hutt region have been unsuccessful.

“In our view the Hutt City Council is breaking the Human Rights Act by not making this option avialable to those with an ethical belief in it,” Mr Blackham says.

The organisation’s website is naturalburials.org.nz. or phone 0800 525 500