MOUNT VERNON — The Kokosing Nature Preserve has a goal of providing burial services that conserve natural resources, reduce carbon emissions, and eliminate the use of toxic chemicals.
The Philander Chase Conservancy (PCC), Kenyon College’s non-profit land trust, purchased Knox County’s Tomahawk Golf Course in 2013 with the intent to protect and conserve its 51 acres of land.
The PCC then received approval from the College Township Zoning Board of Appeals on March 6, 2014 to use a part of this property to develop a nature preserve cemetery. The Kokosing Nature Preserve (KNP) cemetery was thus officially dedicated on Oct. 8, 2015, becoming the first of its kind in central Ohio.
While the cemetery offers cremation burials and scatterings, its most popular service is green burials – a tradition that is centuries old, with its interpretation originating from the bible verse Genesis 3:19 – ‘for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.’
In a green burial, the deceased are not embalmed, but are rather preserved by the use of refrigeration, dry-ice, or non-formaldehyde-based embalming fluid. The bodies are also wrapped in shrouds made of linen or cloth or placed in biodegradable caskets that are often made of cardboard, pine or wicker– any material that encourages rapid decomposition.
The graves of these burials are marked often by simple engraved stones that are laid flat on the plot.
The conservation efforts achieved by choosing a green burial are great in comparison to cremation or traditional burial services. While cremation is generally considered more environmentally-friendly than traditional burials, which require formaldehyde-based embalming fluids and concrete vaults, cremation does involve the burning of fossil fuels, which can harm to the environment.
“We realize that not everyone, necessarily, will feel that green burial is for them, but there are definitely plenty of people from whom we have heard that this is something that they feel is, fits with their beliefs and their wishes for what they want for their own burial,” said Kokosing Nature Preserve steward Amy Henricksen.
In developing the KNP cemetery, the PCC planted more than 300 dogwood, oak, and hickory trees to replace the non-native evergreens that were growing on the property, as well as native pasture grasses and wildflowers such as black-eyed Susans, asters, and purple and yellow coneflowers.
To acknowledge the close affiliations between the Kokosing Nature Preserve, the Philander Chase Conservancy, and Kenyon College, there is a gravel path that runs through the preserve that closely resembles the Kenyon’s Middle Path.
Although families at the KNP are encouraged to plant wildflowers at the gravesite, over time the land will grow over the burial plots and grave markers and return to its original state of prairie grass and woodlands.
Since the preserve’s official establishment, it has sold interment rights for 94 plots, according to Henricksen. While most of these rights were purchased before the time of need, the KNP has thus far had 21 full-body burials, nine burials of cremated remains, and three scatterings of cremated remains.
To purchase interment rights, a one-time gift of $2,500 or more must be made to the Philander Chase Conservancy in order to receive membership to the PCC’s Heritage Circle. Once this gift is made and membership is obtained, Heritage Circle members are eligible to purchase interment rights for one burial plot within three years of the date they made their gift.
These gifts to the PCC are used to support the conservancy’s ongoing land conservation work, specifically to purchase easements, steward existing easements, and ensure that current easements are being upheld. Those who wish to scatter cremated remains do not have to become members of the Heritage Circle.
In 2017, the Kokosing Nature Preserve cemetery was officially verified as a conservation burial ground by the Green Burial Council (GBC), a national non-profit organization committed to advocating for natural, environmentally-sustainable death care through education and certification.
Founded in 2005, the Green Burial Council uses a three-level system to categorize and certify cemeteries in the United States and Canada as hybrid, natural, or conservation burial sites.
In order to obtain the certification as a conservation burial site, the KNP had to guarantee the long-term stewardship of its burial ground through a deed restriction or a conservation easement and have a trust in place to care for the cemetery, which in this case is the Philander Chase Conservancy.
The preserve also had to provide an ecological assessment of existing geology, soils, topography, and potential vegetation and wildlife, as well as plans for the ongoing management of the invasive species on the property.
This certification as a conservation burial ground is the highest recognition possible for a nature preserve cemetery to receive from the Green Burial Council, and for the Kokosing Nature Preserve, acts as a “good housekeeping stamp of approval,” according to Henricksen.
Being awarded this credential makes the KNP the fourth cemetery in Ohio to be approved by the GBC, and the third in the state to be certified as a conservation site.
“(It) is how we show people and how we show ourselves that we are using best practices in our work in our management of the cemetery,” Henricksen noted.
While the Kokosing Nature Preserve sells interment rights and burial spaces and also provides services to open and close caskets or scatter cremated remains, it does not sell merchandise such as caskets or shrouds.
Many people choose to purchase these items from funeral homes and rely on those businesses to provide the actual burial or cremation services.
A number of people who bury their loved ones at the Kokosing Nature Preserve work with Knox County’s Snyder Funeral Home, which is a local business that sells GBC-approved merchandise such as shrouds and biodegradable caskets. Some people also choose to work with Jacki Mann, a Knox County resident and an End-of-Life doula.
When development on the Kokosing Nature Preserve first started, Amy Henricksen and Lisa Schott (from the Philander Chase Conservancy) approached the Snyder Funeral Home to inquire about the company’s openness to providing services for the KNP cemetery.
The business was open to the idea, and has gone on to acquire certification from the Green Burial Council, according to funeral director and embalmer Jeff Briggs.
“Just like cremation, you need to accept it and take what measures you need to be able to service families,” Briggs said.
The process for funeral homes and other providers of environmentally-friendly green burial services to become certified with the GBC entails first filling out an application and then receiving a checklist of several products and services the company would need to be willing to offer customers. Those services include wicker caskets, burial shrouds, GBC-certified embalming fluids, and biodegradable urns.
In their pursuit of a GBC certification, Snyder Funeral Home then had to provide the council with a general price list of these items and green burial services for the GBC to ensure their intentions were legitimate.
Although people working to establish and develop the Kokosing Nature Preserve expected some degree of opposition to the concept of green burial, Henricksen noted there was a higher need for education than persuasion.
“People did not know, necessarily, that green burial was even an option. I think people thought that it was the law that you had to be embalmed, or that it was the law that you had to have a cement vault,” she said. “The biggest thing we received were just questions about what is a green burial.”
Knox County residents Benjamin and Kay Locke had always been interested in green burial options and, when the Kokosing Nature Preserve began its development, were excited about the convenience of a green burial site so close to their home.
The green burial option appealed to Mr. and Mrs. Locke not only because it was better for the environment, but also because of their appreciation of the outdoors and the meaningfulness of the time they frequently spent together in nature.
When Mrs. Locke passed away in May 2020, she was laid to rest in a wooded area of the preserve, an ideal place for someone who had been an avid bird watcher throughout her life. Kay was also especially interested in geology, and worked as a volunteer for the Gorman Nature Center in Mansfield as a nature guide.
“I did sit out there once when it was raining and I got pretty soaked, but even that was kind of an experience,” Locke said. “It kind of even reflects some of the things we did because we did a lot of camping in our life together, and we got stuck in all kinds of bad weather on our trips, so even that was kind of appropriate.”
Since Kay’s death, Locke has spent a significant amount of time at the preserve, sitting with his wife and reflecting on their life together. He notes the rare, special moments that he has experienced there, such as witnessing the appearance of bright flowers in the summer, finding a fawn resting on Kay’s grave, and having a butterfly land on his finger and remain there for several minutes.
“There were just these very touching moments,” he said. “It’s a special place. It’s very serene, it’s restful, it’s a time to contemplate aspects of life and death, and it’s a place I enjoy going out to see her.”
Henrickson said there are lots of different reasons why people choose green burial.
“But I think people like it for its simplicity,” Henricksen said, “And also for people who are environmentally-minded, they are trying to make their final footprint, their final environmental footprint, be as small as possible.”
Despite the fact that green burial is a thousands-year-old tradition, it was a rare practice in the United States until recently. However, it is now a growing trend.
As of 2008, Lawrence, Kansas was the first U.S. city to allow green burials in publicly owned cemeteries. Since then, the number of green cemeteries across the county has grown dramatically as they have been established in a number of different states.
In a 2017, Consumer Awareness and Preferences Survey conducted by the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA), 53.8 percent of respondents indicated an interest in exploring general green funeral services.
The NFDA also reports that about 14 percent of Americans over age 40 today say that they would choose green burial, and 62 percent are open to exploring the concept.
In regards to the Kokosing Nature Preserve, Henricksen notes that land serves the entire community beyond acting solely as a cemetery. For those who do have loved ones buried there, it plays a significant part in the grieving and healing process.
“People feel like they have returned their loved ones to nature’s cycle, and so when they visit, they feel like they can feel that person’s presence in the flowers and the trees and the birds, all the flora and fauna that’s out there at the nature preserve,” Henricksen said.
But to the greater population of Knox County, the preserve serves also as a beautiful space for anyone to visit and enjoy.
“We hear from community members all the time how much they enjoy going out there, walking the paths, and enjoying the beauty and the peacefulness of that space, all the wildlife that’s out there,” Henricksen said.
“I think that people feel like the nature preserve has really been a gift to our community, and it’s been definitely an honor to be part of helping bring that to our community.”
