Photograph by Finnegan Travers
Words by Julia Webster Ayuso
It’s a freezing January afternoon and snow is beginning to cover the path leading into the West cemetery in Schiltigheim, a suburb of Strasbourg in eastern France. Here, in a new 5,000 square meter plot of land known as a “sanctuary forest,” commemorative slabs sit at the foot of a newly planted tree. Since September, Schiltigheim is one of the first French cities to offer this type of resting place: instead of a tombstone, a loved one’s ashes can be placed in an urn and buried at the foot of an oak, cherry or maple tree.
Envisioning the future requires a bit of imagination, but the idea is that, once the forest’s 55 young trees have developed lush canopies, this part of the cemetery will serve as a garden for people to meditate, pray or simply take a stroll to remember their loved ones. “Not only is it a more peaceful place to rest,” says Denise Heilbronn, founder of the association of Au-delà des Racines, who helped start the project. “People rest knowing that their memory continues to have a positive impact on the living, and it’s important to know that even after death we can continue to act for future generations.”
Natural burials are by no means a new phenomenon—cultures the world over have long practiced green burials that honor and respect the Earth. But “sanctuary forests” or “cinerary forests,” in particular, have in recent years become increasingly common in countries like Germany, which has developed hundreds since the concept was first introduced in the early 2000s. On that side of the Rhine River, they usually take the form of existing forests where urns are buried while the forest itself is preserved.
Now, the concept has crept over the border into France where different cities and villages have also started experimenting with a more sustainable end to life. With an increasingly secular society, an aging population, and a growing demand for more environmentally-friendly practices—sanctuary forests are emerging as an attractive alternative to traditional, granite-heavy cemeteries.
The first municipality to successfully roll out this kind of service in France is Muttersholz, a town of 2,200 inhabitants 40 kilometers south of Schiltigheim and also close to the German border. Patrick Barbier, the mayor of the town, which was named France’s 2017 “capital of biodiversity,” first found out about sanctuary forests in 2018 while reading The Hidden Life of Trees, the bestselling book by German forester Peter Wohlleben. It was around that same time——a time marked by climate movements like Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion—that Heilbronn reached out to Barbier to propose the idea. “A whole series of factors came together which made us think that now was the right time to implement the concept,” says Heilbronn.
“People rest knowing that their memory continues to have a positive impact on the living, and it’s important to know that even after death we can continue to act for future generations.”
After several visits to Emmendingen, a German town less than an hour’s drive away with a similar initiative, Barbier and his team selected the area of forest in Muttersholtz where almost 500 urns can now be buried at the foot of 42 oaks and beeches. The bureaucratic process was long given that it was the first cemetery of its kind in the country. But when it finally opened in March last year, requests started pouring in. “We get lots of requests from outside the village. Sometimes even from people who live very far away, on the other side of the country,” says Barbier.
Anyone can reserve a space on the condition that they first pay a visit to the forest to make sure it’s right for them. Non-residents must pay an extra €200 (around $220) on top of the 30-year leases, which cost between €600 ($650) and €1,000 ($1,085) depending on the size of the tree—fees that help cover the costs of running and maintaining the forest. And the urns must be made out of ceramic or stone for a minimal environmental impact, but that also allows them to be recovered in the future.
“Traditional cemeteries no longer suit many people,” says Barbier. “They are the continuation after death of our society of overconsumption. You have tombs that are covered in plastic flowers, you have marble and granite that comes from other continents—I don’t want to force my children to go to places like that,” he adds. “That is my personal opinion, but I think it’s shared by more and more people.” His sentiment is shared by a growing number of towns. Just last month Nancy became the the latest French city to open its own 6,000 forest space where ashes are buried free of charge in biodegradable urns, without plaques or distinguishable signs.
Like in many other European countries, the proportion of French people who describe themselves as non-religious is increasing. In a 2021 study by IFOP, a narrow majority of respondents (51%) said they didn’t believe in God. The amount of people choosing to be cremated has also taken off in the past few decades: 50% of French people say they would prefer to be cremated today compared to just 20% in 1979. It’s also a much cheaper option and—though it still releases carbon dioxide and other damaging fumes—is less harmful to the environment than a burial, which takes up more land and releases toxins and embalming fluids into the Earth. Yet, few people choose to scatter ashes, and instead prefer to have a precise location that can provide comfort to loved ones as they grieve. A sanctuary forest is designed for this precise purpose: what better symbol of life than a tree?
“The whole point of this idea is simplicity: it’s about returning to nature. The matter we are made out of is returned to the ground.”
“The whole point of this idea is simplicity: it’s about returning to nature,” says Barbier. “The matter we are made out of is returned to the ground.”
In the case of Schiltigheim, planting trees in an existing cemetery made the legal process of setting up the sanctuary forest much easier. For Bernard Jenaste, Schiltigheim’s deputy mayor in charge of equality, it was the egalitarian aspect of this concept—as well as the environmental aspect—that caught his attention. Sanctuary forests will not replace traditional cemeteries, he says, but “since we have 28 nationalities in our city, I think it’s important to propose different solutions for everyone.”
Cinerary forests are also space-efficient compared to other types of burial grounds—an especially important consideration in France, a country with a rapidly aging population. Schiltigheim, for instance, provides capacity for around 1,800 urns. “It’s a quick and essential solution [to] the saturation of cemeteries,” says Heilbronn, who is already in conversation with local authorities in major cities like Bordeaux and Grenoble about the possibility of growing sanctuary forests in both locations.
Schiltigheim’s Jenaste says he has even been contacted by representatives in Paris where a shortage of space means only the wealthiest people can afford to be buried in the city’s cemeteries.
Perhaps the biggest argument for sanctuary forests is preservation. Whether it’s protecting existing trees or planting new ones, sanctuary forests require that the vegetation in a piece of land be left intact. The trees planted in Schiltigheim are local species that were chosen for their ability to boost biodiversity and survive the region’s drought and flooding, and the site’s maintenance will be limited to what is “strictly necessary” so that it can “develop its own ecosystem over the years.”
“The word ‘sanctuary forest’ has a double meaning,” says Barbier. “It’s a sanctuary for the people whose ashes are buried here, but it’s also a forest that is left almost untouched: the wood production is stopped, the trees are left to grow old.” Such is the story of Muttersholtz forest, which was exploited for its wood over decades—until it became a funerary site.
“We have several large oak trees that would have been cut down soon, but that won’t happen anymore,” Barbier adds. “They will be left to fall to their beautiful death.”
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The Growing Appeal of Sanctuary Forests
