By Rose Kelley
RHCC Board Member
While visiting family in Colorado, my husband Tom and I took a six hour road trip to visit with Emily Miller, founder and owner of the Colorado Burial Preserve in Florence, CO. It is the state’s first dedicated green cemetery located on 65 acres of arid land that is home to prairie grasses and wildflowers, juniper and pinyon trees and cacti galore. It has been open since 2021 and has accommodated 36 burials for individuals who wanted a wild final resting place. Emily, who came from a career in the funeral industry, was in the first cohort that participated in the Green Burial Masterclass. She told us that she felt green burial was a more authentic way to care for our dead while protecting local watersheds and the quality of native habitats.
The landscape of this cemetery is certainly unique. There are six burial gardens that have been divided into plots by a surveyor experienced in cemetery planning. Each burial garden has a slightly different landscape and vista. The cemetery land is challenged by drought, erosion, and invasive species, but each burial plot is enrolled in a Native Prairie Restoration program to seed and weed in the disturbed area until the natural balance is restored.
When we visited, we saw the beginnings of infrastructure such as hiking trails, a parking lot and the sites of a future pavilion for gatherings with a bathroom and office and a small chapel. For now there is a port-o-let, a shed for the all-important golf cart, hand tools and other items necessary for burials. Emily has the zeal exhibited by so many of us in the natural burial movement. We believe in the standards of the Green Burial Council which are designed to promote a way for our remains to give something back to the earth. I have no doubt that the Colorado Burial Preserve will continue to be an outstanding community resource not only for the dead but for the living as well.
