WGBH Station; WGBH Forum Network; Henry Butler: Inclusive By Design Concert (Part 1)

But the nearest cemetery would be just as much nature preserve as burial grounds and one that blended so seamlessly into the landscape that is more mordant features were largely conspicuous. The beauty of the model too was that it could be replicated anywhere and be adopted to fit any environments and Billy hoped that landowners like him would do just that. When he opened Ramsey Creek to burial in 1998 Billy had been going around the country promoting his green cemetery scheme as a means of preserving more than a million acres of ecologically significant land in the United States. Other landowners have been quick to see the potential of the Ramsay Creek model. One of them is Herb Ingram. The Cornell University employee owned and lived on 100 acres of rolling hill top Meadows south of the lake near Ithaca New York. When Herb decided to move back to tell he looked for a way to preserve his former farmland and to put it to some good

practical use. In the early 2000s he found a group of local environmentalists that was seeking property to start a green cemetery which is a pretty novel idea at the time even more novel than now and saw it as a good and noble use of his land. So Herb donated his land to the effort and in May of 2006 the Green Springs natural cemetery preserve opened to burial. The group consulted with Billy Campbell and one of its members had gone down and consulted with Billy at Ramsey Creek and had spent time at the cemetery taking a cue from that southern cemetery. The organization adopted regulations that define the basic requirements of the green burial. Many are restrictions against strategies and modern burial that delayed the speedy dissolution of the remains. So for instance there are. No monuments no no burial

vaults no biodegradable caskets.