"People are depriving themselves of important psychological or spiritual connections by playing along with the idea of death embedded in the conventional culture. (Natural burial) offers great potential for engaging people now and helping them connect with the cycle of birth and death as a part of human ecology — it's a very meaningful use of the earth." — Kim Sorvig, University of New Mexico landscape architect, consultant to the Green Burial Council

"Burying someone in a certain place creates a feeling of sacredness, a connection to that land. As people choose green burial, we have the opportunity to communicate to them something about the place they are saving. It's a way for people to contribute to the conservation effort." — Ernest Cook, Senior Vice President, Trust for Public Land

"The mainstream funeral industry can play a role in the greening of the American way of death. Many of the directors I've met are sympathetic to the idea of the natural burial. Many more simply accept the fact that they'd be wise to offer the eco goods and services that families in their communities will increasingly request." — Mark Harris, Author, "Grave Matters"

"Wouldn't it be nicer to leave acres of woods as the living legacy of your death?" — Kimberley Campbell, Co-Owner, Memorial Ecosystems

"What [natural burials] are doing basically is land conservation. I think we put death in its rightful place, as part of the cycle of life. Our burials honor the idea of dust to dust." — Billy Campbell, Owner, Ramsey Creek Cemetery, Westminster, S.C.

"I'm beginning to see the green burial trend come into the Midwest. What happened 30 years ago with the rise in cremation will happen with green burials." — John Bucci, Funeral Director, Madison, Wis.

"Green burial isn't about doing extra things. It's about what not to do. It's a positive, thinking-person's statement against  wastefulness and ostentatious consumption. It reflects introspection. I'm getting far, far more inquiries about green burial from the public today than when I started here five years ago." — Joshua Slocum, Executive Director, Funeral Consumers Alliance

"People respond better to this ethos, to celebrate life. Natural burials seem to take the heaviness off a family." — Tyler Casserly, Owner, Forever Fernwood Cemetery, Mill Valley, CA

"Nobody would call [my husband] an environmental person. He just grew up hard in West Virginia, and he was a simple person who liked the plain and simple, and the outdoors. A natural burial suited him perfectly." — Sherrill Hughes, Greenville, S.C.

"Allowing people to feel as though their last act on earth contributes to a positive purpose connects them in an almost religious way to this concept. It makes people's eyes sparkle." — Joe Sehee, Director, Green Burial Council