Dig Deeper

We are a group of Eastern Iowans dedicated to land restoration and protection by creating an end-of-life option

of natural burial for our community. Back to Ground is a nonprofit, partnering with a Land Trust to provide a

conservation cemetery that utilizes sustainable burial practices and stewards the natural environment while

nurturing healing, reflection, and sanctuary with nature.

Conservation cemeteries utilize the simplest burial practices with the least amount of disturbance of the soil

and plants at the grave sites and land overall, using minimal and biodegradable materials to shroud or contain

the body. The beauty is that the decomposition of the body gives all its nutritive value to the soil, the microbes

and creatures that live in it, the plants that grow from it and the animals that eat those plants. Each person

buried in a natural grave becomes part of the living land: an alive memorial of love.

Burials in a conservation cemetery are the roots of protecting the land. The earth– in exchange– and enriched

by the remains of our beloveds, flourishes and provides a sanctified natural world to the community of souls

who come to commune with and honor their people and the land itself.

The nuts and bolts structure of a conservation cemetery is a partnership between a Land Trust as restorer and

protector of the natural ecosystems and the non-profit cemetery group that sets policies and creates community

programs for shared public use of the acres.

Indeed, yes! In every state in the US, natural burial is legal. It is the primary way that burials have been done for

millenia, prior to the American Civil War, when embalming came into common practice, and Funeral Parlors

and Funeral Homes began to take on what was once done by members of the family or community of the

decedent.

Cemeteries make their own policies and many do require grave liners or vaults be in the grave along with a

casket, but this is not in any law code. These materials are for maintaining level ground for mowing purposes.

Embalming of bodies is also not a law, except in such very rare instances of communicable diseases that may

live on after death, such as ebola. Some funeral homes may require embalming for open casket viewing.

For full body burials, a simple biodegradable sheet of hemp, cotton, linen, etc. is the simplest form of natural

burial. We also permit brown cardboard caskets (any decoration should be water or milk-based paints),

softwood boxes or shroud boards without metals, plastics, plywood or resins meet our burial guidelines. Also,

wicker, willow, seagrass and hemp baskets or anything that is not artificially altered and will break down

naturally.

We also permit the burial (but not scattering) of cremated remains. The same container requirements apply as for bodies.