Michelle Hogle Acciavatti thinks about our impact on the Earth when we live, and when we die.
What if we thought as much about sustainability in death as we try to do in our daily lives? Better yet, what if thinking beyond traditional burial and cremation, which both have high costs to the planet, made us more conscious of the earth-friendly choices we are making right now? That is part of the multifaceted mission of Vermont Forest Cemetery, which officially opened in 2023 and is the creation of former neuroscientist and funeral director Michelle Hogle Acciavatti, who worked as a death doula, and is now focused on natural burial planning.
The beautiful, sixty-five-acre forest in Roxbury, Vermont — home to the cemetery — holds a purpose for Acciavatti beyond natural burials. People are encouraged to come explore the trails and get to know and steward the land where they will be laid to rest. Writer Corey Burdick talked with Acciavatti to learn more about natural burials and how she created her “green job:”
Corey Burdick: What is your background?
Michelle Hogle Acciavatti: I received my bachelor’s degree from Bennington College, where I designed my own major. It is there where I became interested in motor and cognitive development. Then, I attended graduate school at Boston University for neuroscience. In 2010, I became a research assistant for a study at Boston Children’s Hospital, which had commissioned a task force to develop a policy on organ donation after cardiac death in children. I went on to receive a certificate in bioethics in 2011 from Harvard Medical School, but then I left academic science completely, and, at the suggestion of a friend, I began training to be a death doula.
In 2014, I moved to Vermont and began volunteering in hospice care. It taught me about how people die and what they need. I then became a conventional funeral director, but I was working in a silo. I talked to people who knew natural burial was possible, but I didn’t know how to do it in the context of a funeral home.
CB: What are some of the challenges to your green job?
MHA: In a lot of ways, the challenge is creating the job as I go. Five years ago, I was still working to fully legalize natural burial (burial without embalming, in land managed in an ecologically sound manner, in a container made of nontoxic, nonhazardous, plant-derived materials, without a vault) in the state of Vermont, and now I am less than six months in, and they’re running natural burial grounds in the state. There have been a lot of conversations with various state agencies, figuring out the logistics of permits and operations. There’s been building community with local funeral directors who can offer support services to families. There’s been the work of spreading the word, making sure people know who we are. There’s been being on a tiny tiny budget and not being able to pay enough support staff, and being two people trying to do everything. There have been the challenges of fundraising when there are so many other urgent causes that people need to support, such as combating the housing crisis and addiction. There’s also been the challenge of being seen as legitimate in this work. We’ve had a really hard time getting the state to see natural burial as a legitimate conservation tool. And, of course, there’s also been working with the weather, like in mud season.
CB: How did you find out about the property for sale in Roxbury, and why did you choose it?
MHA: When we first started looking for land for the cemetery, we weren’t really sure what we were looking for, other than a beautiful spot that was relatively accessible and had trails, and that we could afford. Of course, this was during the pandemic, so everyone else in the country seemed to also be looking for similar properties. The hope had been to build a natural burial funeral home on-site at the same time as we opened the cemetery. We basically were reading real estate listings, driving out to sites, and taking hikes to see if something was suitable. We also had to keep in mind that we needed to have an area that either was zoned for a cemetery or was in a community that would be open to a zoning variance.
One day, after hiking a plot that just wasn’t going to work, I sat down and made a wish list of everything that I absolutely wanted to have in the land and everything that I absolutely needed to have in order for the cemetery to work, and that was when the listing for the property in Roxbury went online. Of course, a bit flatter and easier soil would have been great, but we have the tools that we need, and it’s hard to compete with the beauty.
CB: How did you acquire the land for the cemetery?
MHA: My husband, who is my business partner, lost his mother just before the start of the pandemic. We were able to use money from her life savings to purchase the land, and then donate that to the nonprofit that runs the cemetery. (That’s why one of our first trails is called Eileen’s Ring, in her honor). The cemetery itself is 56.2 acres, and the land was originally logged by the first settlers to Roxbury. It was likely used as a potato farm and at one part had sheep (in fact, our accessible burial area is in the old sheepfold); portions of it were used to grow hay before it was sold to two successive logging companies, the first of which removed some easy-to-reach trees on the property; the second actually planted some trees that it never harvested. Like most of Vermont's forests it is a beech-birch-maple dominant forest in early succession- meaning most of the trees are less than 60 years old and the species imbalance represents what grows the fastest as deer overbrowsing is quite an issue for reforestation.
CB: What are the environmental benefits to natural burial?
MHA: My short answer is that natural burial minimizes the harms that conventional disposition practices pose to the environment and maximizes the benefits. A lot of people want to talk about the reduction in the use of concrete [nearly every cemetery in the country requires the use of a burial vault. These are most often concrete boxes, though in rare cases they are plastic. They are set into the ground before the burial takes place] or formaldehyde. And those things are great, but I think the true environmental impacts lie elsewhere. But, to address concrete and formaldehyde, the latter is not the environmental concern that many people might think it is. Because it is an organic substance, when it is buried, healthy soil soil can break it down and decompose it just like it does anything else in the body (the same goes for chemotherapy, drugs, antidepressants, birth control, and other hormones — basically most of the things we accumulate in our body), so it’s not much of a risk to the environment.
For those of us that make environmentally conscious choices while we are alive, natural burial can feel like a continuation of those values. Ultimately, all of this is about how we live.
However, it is a real risk to embalmers. And, because it destroys the gut biome, it disrupts the partnership that really facilitates decomposition — the first stage of internal decomposition being mediated by the body’s own bacteria. Concrete, on the other hand, is not organic and will not break down in soil, and it’s quite problematic when it leaches over time (concrete leachate is silica and inorganic material that is released from concrete when moist and builds up in soil and changes soil chemistry and composition). And it prevents the nutrients from returning to the soil from the body. Basically, the idea is that natural burial allows the body to be used by the environment after death as a source of nutrients.
There’s great research coming out to show that human body decomposition actually increases the amount of nutrients available in the soil beyond just adding volume, so that’s very exciting. There’s also research showing that reforestation combats climate change. So finding ways to keep forests as a source of income without cutting down trees is going to become quite important in Vermont. I believe natural burial can be one of the answers to that question.
CB: So it’s an alternative to cremation?
A: Natural burial offers an alternative to cremation. Many people are drawn to cremation because it is efficient, it is cost-effective, it doesn’t require using a conventional cemetery, which many people are starting to see as a waste of space since it can only be used for burial. But cremation has a very large impact on the environment. It requires fossil fuel, it releases greenhouse gasses, and the ashes after cremation have a pH of about 11.4, and the nutrients are baked into them and not readily bioavailable to the soil.
So you can see our conventional burial practices harm the environment without doing it any good. What about natural burial? It has some harm to the environment, of course. We’re digging holes in the forest. We’re making trails even if it’s in a meadow. We’re still disrupting ecosystems, but it also offers benefits back to the environment in exchange.
CB: I get the sense this was truly your idea and the manifestation of your job, though your family seems quite involved as well.
MHA:I started my journey to become a death worker eleven years ago, and, at first, I think it was relatively upsetting to my family. It’s not that they weren’t supportive. It’s just they didn’t want death to be that present in their lives. Over time, they’ve gotten used to it. We’ve had shared death experiences together. My husband, Paul Acciavatti, is the sexton [cemetery manager] at the cemetery, and he also works with me at our sister business, Green Mountain Funeral Alternatives.
The burial is a participatory event. It offers something to do with that grief experience. … It becomes an act of service.
CB: I understand that witnessing the participatory nature of natural burials, and watching a person return to the earth in their natural state, can be very moving. How many natural burials have you done so far, and how have people responded?
MHA: We’ve done nine burials so far, and all of the feedback we’ve gotten has been overwhelmingly positive. A couple of times after the body has been lowered, I’ve heard people go “wow!” in an expression of awe. We also recently had a family participate in the digging of the grave themselves, alongside us, which was powerful for us. I don’t really have good words for it. It is such an honor and a privilege to be a part of families doing something that is meaningful for them. Especially after a stint in the conventional funeral industry, where so few people had a real emotional experience of the burial of somebody that they loved.
CB: What inspires you most to continue promoting this method of burial? What makes it unique?
MHA: I think something that many people have heard me say is the idea that grief is an emotion that demands action. And our conventional funeral experience really takes away most of the opportunities [for that]. People have to be active and engaged after a death occurs. The burial is a participatory event. It offers something to do with that grief experience. If you are going to participate and prepare the body, there’s that experience, which is something I encourage people to do, as it can help integrate the reality that death has occurred. And carrying the body, lowering it to the Earth and shoveling, are all in service of giving this body back to the Earth. It helps reinforce the concept that it is a shell, that it has a legacy, that it is serving a purpose, helping heal the environment, and that the person who is being buried is serving their wishes by doing this work. It becomes an act of service.
And I think for the people dying it becomes an act of purpose. In my experiences working with people who are dying, there is a need to make sense of our lives and to find meaning. And this is really complicated. But natural burial has quite a simple purpose and meaning. And for those of us that make environmentally conscious choices while we are alive, natural burial can feel like a continuation of those values. Ultimately, all of this is about how we live.
CB: If someone is thinking about a natural burial, where do they start the process?
A: The most important thing you can do if you want a natural burial is to plan for it. Many conventional funeral directors adopted the natural burial package that I created when I worked in the funeral home. Certainly anybody can sit down with a Funeral Director and make a plan that way. What I offer is drawn from my experience as an advanced care planner, Death Doula, home funeral guide, Funeral Director, and natural burial cemetery manager. People working with me craft a step-by-step plan for their dying and burial, whether they want to be buried at Vermont Forest Cemetery, on their own property, or in one of the conventional cemeteries with natural burial sections. I am also available as a licensed Funeral Director to support families who want to explore caring for their own dead and natural burial without working with the conventional Funeral Director and funeral home.
CB: Do you have any recommendations for someone getting started in this line of work? Perhaps transitioning from conducting traditional cremation or casket burial to natural burial?
MHA: I think the most important thing is to know what you don’t know. We have been so successful so fast because of the community of people supporting us. We are incredibly fortunate to have people sharing their knowledge of operating natural burial grounds. We’ve had a lot of people already ask us how to start their own natural burial grounds, and I don’t want to discourage anyone, but it has not been easy. Our response to people that want to start their own is: come and dig a grave with us! We’d love to have your help, and you can see what’s really involved, and we’ll answer your questions while we work.
