Saving One Million Acres for Two Thousand Years

Americans spend 20 billion dollars per year on funerals, and the number of funerals will soon increase as the baby boomers generate a death boom. In the next 25 years, less than 10% of this income could protect and restore more than 1 million acres of natural landscape. Conservation burial grounds can help capture this funding source and provide long lasting connections between human and natural communities. Several financially successful projects are up and running, and ancient antecedents prove potential durability. Dr. Billy Campbell, with the help of his wife Kimberley, founded Memorial Ecosystems in 1996 and developed the world's first conservation burial ground, Ramsey Creek, in 1998. He has worked closely with land conservation groups and others to develop seven other projects. The Green Burial Council adopted a number of the standards he developed as a part of their own Green Burial Standards. Working with SC's Upstate Forever, he helped develop the first comprehensive easement and operations agreement for a conservation burial ground.