Green Prairie Cemeteries Could Protect and Restore Prairies
Wumple.com
Envision a green cemetery in the middle of a restored tallgrass prairie, with native flowers blooming in the spring alongside lush native grasses. Could you imagine a more beautiful way to spend eternity while helping to protect and restore an endangered ecosystem and provide habitat for grassland birds, butterflies, and other prairie wildlife?
Sales of plots in the conservation burial ground would fund the prairie conservation and restoration at the prairie cemetery and an adjacent tallgrass prairie remnant. A conservation easement or outright ownership by a land trust would protect both the prairie cemetery and the adjacent prairie remnant in perpetuity.
Flat headstones would allow haying or cutting the prairie cemetery along with the native prairie remnant along side of it that provides the seed for the prairie restoration.
Biodegradable coffins and an absence of preservatives would make the project further green. A certification from the Green Burial Council would help assure families that ecological practices were being followed.
Could you fund or be a partner in a green prairie cemetery project? Contact the Native Prairies Association of Texas if so!