Green Burials
Green (or natural) burial emphasizes simplicity and environmental sustainability. The body is neither cremated nor prepared with chemicals such as traditional embalming fluids. Your loved one placed in a biodegradable coffin or shroud and buried without a vault. The grave site is allowed to return to nature. This allows for the complete decomposition of the body and its natural return to the soil.
These offerings allow for a funeral to take place without the use of toxic and non-biodegradable materials/chemicals.
Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery (PCCC) is a non-profit community cemetery nestled in a protected conservation area just outside of Gainesville. We are licensed by the state of Florida and certified at the highest level by the Green Burial Council. Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery collaborates with Alachua Conservation Trust (ACT), a long-standing conservation organization in Gainesville, to manage, protect, and restore the land for all living things. This includes maintaining a conservation easement with Alachua County which protects the land from development in perpetuity and keeps it open to the public.
Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery is a natural and wild space. Here you will find a blend of flowering meadows and shaded, breezy hammocks where people from across the state and beyond have made the choice for a natural burial (also called a green burial). By preventing the use of embalming fluids and vaults, those laid to rest here can return to and become one with the earth.
Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery -- Photo by PJ Worth
Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery -- Photo by Melissa Hill