Concept Goals
- To distinguish between a true earth burial and underground entombment.
- To advance the concept (and practice) of family cemeteries – which welcome the interment of pet remains – as an alternative to human-only cemeteries.
- To develop the concept of interspecies families with their full expression of joy and sorrow.
Action Goals
- To create natural/green burial options for the remains of beloved companion animals in both, pet and family cemeteries.
- To provide information about the natural burial of pet remains.
- To facilitate research about pet cemeteries and the natural burial of pet remains.
Objectives
The following objectives are designed to meet these overriding goals. For a fuller description, visit the sub-page, Actions.
1. Public Education
To encourage families to become informed about local green burial options for their companion animals before their pet passes away.
2. Education for Pet Cemetery Professionals
To provide pet cemetery owners and managers with information that will support their interest in and provision of green burial options.
3. Permanent Status for Pet Cemeteries
To advocate for pet cemeteries to acquire governmental status as protected sites in perpetuity – a prerequisite for green burial options.
4. Pet Family Mobilization
To encourage pet ‘owners’ to set up a local (non-profit) burial society in order to work with existing pet cemeteries, purchase pet cemeteries, or establish new green pet cemeteries.
5. Capital Campaigns
To support the establishment of new green pet-burial sites.
6. Advocacy for Pet-Burials in Family Plots
To change state cemetery laws in order to allow pets to be buried in family cemetery plots. While pets can be buried in family plots in many states, this practice is currently prohibited in California, Georgia, New York, Oregon and Washington (we are investigating other states for a complete listing).
7. Interstate Transportation
To support systems that will facilitate the transportation of a pet’s remains from one state to another for a natural burial back home.
8. Research
To facilitate multidisciplinary research about pet cemeteries and the natural burial of pet remains. Such research would include investigations into how (if at all) the particular choice for the disposition of pet remains may be connected to perceptions about other animals and our relationships with them.
updated May 12, 2010
This page has the following sub pages.
