In the deep forests of Chitete, a village in Nyaminyami, Kariba, at a crowded homestead 6 pall bearers carry the body of the deceased on freshly cut logs from a Msasa tree, wrapped in a cotton blanket as they lead mourners to a village graveyard. Women ululate while sweeping the path with fresh tree branches cut from a nearby bush. Just behind the grave soil heap, a pile of fresh tree big branches is on standby to be used again as they fill in the grave. To visitors and strangers in the village the family is poor that it cannot afford a coffin. The truth is they can afford, but the deceased instructed an eco-friendly funeral – a green burial.
Zimbabweans and most Africans have customs they follow after the death of a loved one. With the increase and continued deaths of human beings more coffins are being used with most of them made from wood. The coffins are supplied by both registered and self-employed carpenters who make it difficult for government regulators like the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) and Forestry Commission to properly account for activities like deforestation. The mass production of coffins in Zimbabwe directly translates to the increase on the depletion of trees which is detrimental to the environment. Many countries mainly in the global North are embracing green burials to save the environment and mitigate the effects of climate change. In Zimbabwe and other African countries no eco-plans for green burials have been suggested so far.
Last year’s COP 26 in Glasgow, Scotland was an opportunity for countries to map the way forward in reducing and combating climate change. Zimbabwe had the same opportunity to share their plans; conversely no proposal on green burials was heard. This is any activity which has not been seriously considered by Zimbabwe in the wake of increased deforestation, wood poaching and destruction of natural habitats in its forests. COP summits provide a forum which includes countries that are already reaping the benefits of ‘living green and burying green’, that Zimbabwe should learn and adopt. The majority of Zimbabweans conduct conventional burials in which mostly wooden and metal coffins are used. Few indigenous people and foreign residents in Zimbabwe opt for cremation. With cremation touted as an alternative, environmental experts say it is also a contributor to environmental pollution and is worse than the traditional form of burial. Conventional burial refers to the actual burial process. This means the opening and closing of the grave, the preparation of the remains, and the laying of those remains in the burial plot. Green burial refers to this process but also to the cemetery site in which the burial takes place.
Burials remain part of the funeral traditions but in a planet under threat of climate change where people are trying to find solutions to the protection of environment, new measures are being suggested including doing away with traditional coffins. According to the Green Burial Council, a green burial due diligence must be done in establishing the cemetery site after investigating aquifer and known water sources. The council says one body will decompose over a period of 4 to 6 weeks, realising about 12 gallons of moisture. In a typical green burial, the body is not cremated, prepared with chemicals, or buried in a concrete vault. It is simply placed in biodegradable container and interred in grave to decompose fully and return to nature. As a general rule, the ideal burial depth for optimal decomposition conditions is 3.5 – 4 feet from the bottom of the grave to the soil horizon, which also guarantees an 18 – 24inch smell barrier that prevents animals, two and four legged both, from being able to smell anything.
During the conventional burial people usually dig six feet to inter the body. The six feet under rule for burial may have come from a plague in London in 1665. It is reported that, the Lord Mayor of London ordered all the “graves shall be at least six-foot deep.” Gravesites reaching six feet helped prevent farmers from accidentally ploughing up bodies. The underdevelopment of rural areas and effects of economic depression coupled with Covid -19 in Zimbabwe has made many people to be not environmentally responsible. Electricity black outs in town and various rural activities make people wantonly waste natural resources such as tress for wood and other uses. In such an environment people will be not ready for the green change. Lack of proper education and advocacy by the environmental watchdogs is a fertile foundation for resistance by people on green burials, given than funerals are culturally conserved occasions which many Africans cannot temper with. In many countries burying a body without a coffin is a taboo.
Currently, there is no clear legislation in Zimbabwe to demystify myths and values attached to the burial rites. Some think that a sound environmentally aligned law and the involvement of traditional leaders and key stakeholders in communities can change the Zimbabwean and African perception on the burials. In countries which have started practising green burials, in the cemeteries, one will not find rows of headstones, manicured lawns or pathways to a loved one’s final resting place. Instead, they stroll through forests set within more than a thousand acres of wilderness.
Speaking to the Stateline in the United States of America (USA) Jodie Buller, the White Eagle’s cemetery’s manager narrated how the burial is handled. “Bodies are placed in shallow graves among the trees, often wrapped in biodegradable shrouds, surrounded with leaves and pine needle mulch, and allowed to decompose naturally, returning nutrients to the soil. Grave markers are natural stones,” said Buller. Conservation cemeteries like White Eagle, officially recognized by the Green Burial Council, the industry’s certification body are still few and far between very few cemeteries. In Zimbabwe, there is need to learn how to handle the dead in eco-friendly ways. Cemeteries like Warren Hills have set aside a designated burial area for the Muslims as their policy respects cultural diversity. Muslim or Islam traditions use similar practices, burying the dead in a shroud or coffin of untreated wood without cremating or embalming.
According to the California-based Green Burial Council, cemeteries in the United States put more than 4 million gallons of embalming fluid and 64,000 tons of steel into the ground each year, along with 1.6 million tons of concrete. However, the council estimates that cremation which involves heating a furnace to close to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit for up to two hours produces about the same emissions as driving 500 miles in a car. Alex Brown of the US Stateline says that burial also is a land-use issue, as cemeteries must claim ever-increasing acres to accommodate new arrivals. “Conservation cemeteries, on the other hand, are designed to preserve and expand existing wilderness areas while using the burials as a funding mechanism for the environmental work,” says Brown.
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