South African cemeteries are quietly changing. Driven by overcrowded city graveyards, rising funeral costs, and a growing desire to reduce environmental harm, a small but expanding market for “green” or natural burials has emerged — offered by private conservation parks, funeral directors, and local initiatives. These options replace concrete vaults, chemical embalming, and heavy monuments with biodegradable coffins or urns, shallow interments, or tree memorials, along with the promise that land used for resting places can also be managed for biodiversity and carbon storage. According to News24, South Africa’s first eco-cemetery opened near Stellenbosch in 2011, offering lower-impact choices such as wicker coffins, ash-scattering zones, and tree markers.
This trend matters because the burial sector is not only about culture and grief; it also affects land use, municipal budgets, and—literally—the soil. Municipal reports and planning documents show that cemeteries are under severe strain from population growth and urbanisation, pushing local authorities to seek alternatives to conventional in-ground burials. A 2016 report by the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) found that land scarcity for cemeteries is a critical issue for municipalities and that alternative disposal methods are being considered as part of long-term planning.
In This Article
- Families and Businesses Choosing Green
- What the Science and the City Books Say
- What to Do Next: Practical Steps for Families, Municipalities and Investors
- Closing the loop — How an “Underground Economy” Becomes a Climate Asset
Families and Businesses Choosing Green
The paving, vaults, and embalming fluids that define many conventional funerals are one reason families and providers are exploring greener options. Private providers such as Wiesenhof Legacy Park (often called Legacy Parks) near Stellenbosch, along with newer ventures like The Preserve, promote the idea that death care can fund conservation or at least coexist with it. “People now have the option of leaving this world in an Earth-friendly way,” a Legacy Parks executive told reporters when Wiesenhof opened in 2011. Prices publicised by the park give a sense of the market: an ash scattering was advertised at around R1,500 ($85.27), while a prime plot cost roughly R28,000 ($159.18) — comparable in some cases to mainstream funeral expenses but framed as contributing to land stewardship rather than permanent land use.
Funeral directors in Johannesburg report that some families choose an indigenous tree as a grave marker instead of a headstone, allowing the site to become, over time, part of a living remnant. Private parks describe visitors who value both the security and the idea that their loved one’s plot creates a pocket of natural habitat where birds and wildflowers can return. Press coverage, industry statements, and site descriptions show that South African providers are presenting green burial as both a spiritual choice and a practical response to overcrowded municipal cemeteries. Examples include the long-running Wiesenhof project and conservation-focused memorial parks that emphasise habitat and visitor experience.
What the Science and the City Books Say
The environmental case for green burial has two parts: potential benefits and real risks. On the benefit side, recent scientific reviews point out that natural burial can create habitat, increase above-ground biodiversity and reduce the inputs (embalming chemicals, concrete vaults) that otherwise enter soil systems. As a multidisciplinary review recently concluded, “there are some clear environmental benefits to natural burial, such as habitat creation and aboveground biodiversity,” while also warning that major knowledge gaps remain about long-term risks.
Those knowledge gaps matter because empirical studies in South Africa and elsewhere show that conventional cemetery soils can accumulate materials derived from burial practices. A well-cited local study of the Zandfontein Cemetery in Tshwane found that “mineral concentrations of soils within the Zandfontein Cemetery were considerably higher than those off-site,” and that zones with many burials had elevated levels of metals and minerals compared with less-used portions of the cemetery. The authors warned that such accumulations could pose environmental and human-health risks and recommended monitoring of nearby groundwater.
At the same time, global reviews of the funeral sector’s environmental footprint highlight air emissions from cremation, as well as the chemical and material wastes associated with conventional burials. A 2022 review synthesised evidence on pollution from cemeteries and crematoria, identifying airborne and soil pathways for contaminants, and calling for more finely resolved life-cycle studies of different disposition methods. The review found that both burial and cremation practices can introduce pollutants into soil and air, and concluded that sustainability claims should be balanced with careful monitoring.
Policy work by local authorities has begun to pick up these threads. SALGA’s 2016 practical handbook for municipalities documented the problem of shrinking cemetery space, the administrative and budget pressures this creates, and the options cities are experimenting with — from grave re-use after regulated intervals to encouraging alternative methods and partnering with private providers. The handbook identified green burial as one tool in a broader set of responses to a public-service and land-use challenge, and found that municipal innovation will need to include record-keeping, pricing, re-use rules, and community involvement.
What to Do Next: Practical Steps for Families, Municipalities and Investors
If green burial is to be a genuine climate and conservation tool — and not just a marketing label — three practical fields need action right away.
First, families and purchasers should ask for transparent, verifiable practices. When a provider promises “green” outcomes, request site plans, management commitments and proof about what will be planted, how graves are marked, and what chemicals (if any) are used. Private parks such as The Preserve publish environmental authorisations and site details for particular locations; these formal documents help families evaluate claims.
Second, municipalities must convert planning pressure into smart regulation and monitoring. South African cities already recognise limited land and budget for cemeteries; SALGA’s guidance suggests municipalities integrate alternative disposal options into development planning, adopt better record keeping and create clear legal pathways for grave re-use and conservation burial where appropriate. The SALGA handbook recommended integrated planning, GIS site-suitability analysis and routine water-quality monitoring around cemetery sites.
Third, the research community and funders should close the evidence gaps. Scientific reviews emphasise both benefits and uncertainties: natural burial can support habitat and biodiversity, but we still need long-term, local data on what actually moves through soil and groundwater where different burial practices are used. Researchers working on soils and decomposition have started that work — the Cranfield review and related studies probe nutrient cycles, microbial change and the fate of pharmaceutical residues — but much remains to be done in southern African contexts.
To translate that into specific steps: municipalities should require baseline soil and groundwater monitoring when new burial sites are opened, and publish simple environmental statements for each cemetery. Private providers should make conservation commitments legally binding — for example, holding land in trust for conservation outcomes rather than selling plots as ordinary real estate. Families should include environmental criteria in funeral decisions (ask about embalming, casket materials, grave depth and site management). Researchers and funders should prioritise comparative life-cycle analyses of disposition methods in South Africa — so policy decisions are grounded in local hydrogeology, soils and social realities.
Closing the loop — How an “Underground Economy” Becomes a Climate Asset
The phrase “underground economy” usually evokes hidden money flows. In the case of green burials, it’s useful as a double entendre: what’s happening beneath the ground (soil, microbes, carbon) and the new economic activities quietly building around greener ways to lay the dead to rest. When managed with strong science and clear rules, burial grounds can become small-scale conservation investments that store carbon in soil and vegetation, reduce industrial inputs, and preserve land as pockets of habitat in urbanising regions. But that promise depends on evidence and regulation — and on honest markets that do not greenwash.
Examples in South Africa — the Wiesenhof/Legacy Parks experiment, The Preserve’s conservation-park framing, and municipal case studies gathered by SALGA — show the direction things are heading: families want alternatives, providers see a niche, and cities need options. The soil studies and reviews remind us that the environmental story is not automatically rosy: cemetery soils can accumulate pollutants, and the science still needs to track burial practices across years and landscapes. Jonker and Olivier’s Zandfontein work is the strongest local signal that monitoring is needed.
If you are a family thinking about this option: ask for the site’s environmental authorisation and management plan, compare full costs (including any conservation fees), and request commitments on grave marking and long-term land stewardship. If you work for a municipality: use GIS to map cemetery capacity, require baseline monitoring for new sites, and pilot public–private partnerships where private conservation parks can demonstrably add biodiversity value. If you are a researcher or funder, target long-term monitoring projects in South African sites so local evidence replaces global guesswork.
Conclusion
South Africa’s cemeteries are not just places of mourning — they are landscapes where policy, culture and the climate meet. With careful regulation, honest markets and better science, the “underground” can become a public good: greener burials that respect grief, save space and, modestly but meaningfully, help soils and biodiversity do the work they have always done.
