Vermont's first fully natural burial cemetery is opening this month

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https://vtdigger.org/2023/10/04/vermonts-first-fully-natural-burial-cemetery-is-opening-this-month/

Vermont’s first fully natural burial cemetery is opening this month

The founder of the Roxbury cemetery hopes to make it part of a new movement changing the way Vermonters think about death.

By Erin Petenko
October 4, 2023, 6:34 pm



Michelle Acciavatti at the Vermont Forest Cemetery in Roxbury on Tuesday. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger

A wooded 56-acre patch of land along a branch of the White River could soon serve as the final resting place for Vermonters seeking a disposition after death that’s different from the usual.

When the Vermont Forest Cemetery opens in Roxbury later this month, it will be the first cemetery in the state devoted entirely to natural burials.

Natural burials forgo embalming and traditional caskets. Instead, the body is placed unaltered into the ground, wrapped in a burial shroud or a casket made of biodegradable materials.

At the Vermont Forest Cemetery, which plans to host a grand opening event this Saturday, gravesites will be minimally marked and will not be plowed or mowed. The cemetery’s founder, Michelle Acciavatti, explained that both the graves and the bodies beneath will become part of the natural environment of the surrounding forest, which the cemetery plans to conserve for the foreseeable future.

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