Natural burial is one the fastest growing environmental movements in the UK helped by such slogans as “giving the body back to nature” and “leave the world a better place” Families often choose a green burial as they see death as a source of life and view the body as a gift to the earth rather than as waste that has to be disposed of.

A natural burial ground is not a “cemetery in a wood” that would be missing the point. A woodland burial ground should, in time, look no different from any other woodland in the local area; in all probability it should look better as it is actively managed to encourage flora and fauna and to enhance biodiversity. There is no such thing as an unkempt grave in a natural burial ground and the graves that are marked are done so with a discreet stone plaque set almost flush with the forest floor.

Most of Britain was once covered in broadleaf forest but today only around 12% of our landscape is wooded; woodland burial grounds are helping to reverse this trend. According to the Forestry Commission UK forests and woodlands contain around 150 million tonnes of carbon in the biomass and 640 million tonnes of carbon in the soil. UK forests and woodlands are a carbon sink as they remove about 10 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere every year.  (One tonne of carbon is equivalent to 3.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide)