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, and comprise the basis for our separate projects.

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 families (i.e., ‘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 Cemetery Sites

To change state cemetery laws in order to allow pets to be buried in family cemetery sites. 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. 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.

8.  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.

updated May 25, 2012