At the turn of the New Year, we traditionally re-evaluate our finances, diets, and major life directions by making New Year’s resolutions. This year, we offer a cheery additional  option: evaluating how green your after-life plans are. To help, the Trust for Natural Legacies, Inc. (TNL) provides conservation cemeteries, an eco-friendly way of resting naturally ... forever. Hey: who wouldn’t want to be buried in a serene scene?

To be part of this green hereafter, your burial arrangements must meet TNL's eco-friendly burial standards. TNL, which is establishing green burial options and open space preserves throughout the country, requires biodegradable caskets and prohibits the use of embalming fluids and other burial chemicals, which can mix with groundwater runoff and spill over into water supplies. TNL also eliminates the concrete seal typically used to encase caskets, reducing the amount of non-earthly, raw materials used to maintain plots.

TNL’s conservation cemeteries preserve land for recreational use and as natural habitat. By limiting the area available for burial plots to only 10 to 30 percent of each site, most of the natural habitat is spared from disruption. Of the land that is temporarily disturbed for burials, re-vegetation using trees and native plants is performed to return the land back to nature. Hiking trails are also set up so that loved ones can pay respect to their loved ones in a park-like setting.

Traditional headstones are disallowed. Markers must either be flat and able to lie on the ground, or made of biodegradable materials like wood.

Clearly, TNL's burial grounds are green and non-traditional. Still, there are additional steps they might consider. How about xeriscaping to limit water needs, while still providing habitat?

Strange as it sounds, being dead is a profound act. It's part of the eternal cycle; in death our remains feed the living. It's our last act ... our very last act. TNL burials make it possible to go out in green style.