31-05-2025
Duo seeking space for natural burials
Two Wānaka women are continuing their efforts to bring more sustainability to burials, using methods such as removing the casket and wrapping a loved one's body.
The common method of embalming for burial can often have a negative impact on the environment, including leached chemicals into the ground.
Liz Maluschnig and Su Hoskin opened the Death Cafe in Wānaka to help give people the opportunity to talk and reach out for support when they are grieving.
They then took this a step further and encouraged individuals to think about when the time came, would they be leaving the world in an environmentally friendly way.
Two years ago, they formed the group Wānaka Natural Burials to try to work with the Queenstown Lakes District Council on setting up a natural burial ground in Wānaka.
A natural burial ground would include bodies being in non-toxic containers and having shallow graves, to encourage a more natural decomposition process.
The group no longer exists but the women continue to work with the council as they look to have a space for natural burials.
Parks officer Tarsy Koentges said if a natural burial area were to be created, it would be at the Hawea Cemetery, as the council had recently completed a site suitability report for the location.
Both Ms Maluschnig and Ms Hoskin saw embalming — and certain methods of preserving a deceased body — as being harmful to the environment.
Embalming involves the use of chemicals to delay the decomposition of a body and research shows these chemicals can leach into the soil and result in ecological harm.
Ms Hoskin said our bodies continued to have nutrients after we died, which could be given back to the earth through alternative methods such as burial shrouds — where the body was wrapped in biodegradable material.
"Just being connected with the earth and understanding that the earth takes care of us and we need to return that at the end of our lives."
The pair are looking at ways to lower the cost of funerals and to speak more openly about death and the grief that comes with it.
One of the first steps to putting this vision in motion is a Death Without Debt workshop in Wānaka early next month.
The workshops are held nationwide by the Death Without Debt organisation and they are a wealth of knowledge on how to reduce the cost of funerals.
The workshop will cover end-of-life planning, ecological methods of burial, community initiatives and reducing funeral costs.
"I think the response is actually quite positive because there's such an outcry at the moment about the high cost of funerals," Ms Maluschnig said.
In a simpler, more traditional time, funerals were a family effort, making them less of a financial burden and more fulfilling to the grieving process.
Years ago, the deceased's family would help with the cleaning of the body, building the coffin and preparing the meals. Standard practice now is hiring a funeral director to take on all of the duties.
"I think bringing people back to what we traditionally did is quite empowering," she said.
"There was a much more community-driven way of doing death and it was so much more healing."
Ms Maluschnig recalled her own mother-in-law's funeral not long ago, where her husband had built the coffin and she had helped prepare the room for the service.
The overall purpose of the initiatives and workshops that Ms Hoskin and Ms Maluschnig are putting in motion is to normalise conversations around death and, by doing so, remove the fear associated with it.
