EDITOR'S NOTE: Spectrum News 1 multimedia journalist Parker Collins spoke to a mortuary services provider about the growing movement toward non-traditional burials. Click the arrow above to watch the video.

LAKE ARROWHEAD, Calif. – Margot Carrera knows the location of her final resting place.

Five years ago, when Carrera was 62 years old, she was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. After diagnosis, she had the arduous task of preparing her funeral.  

"I was looking for a final resting place if things didn't go the way I wanted it to," said Carrera, who is now 67-years-old and a nature photographer from San Diego.

Rather than embarking on the traditional route of looking for a casket and burial plot at a cemetery, Carrera found a death care option that better aligned with her love of nature.

When the time comes, Carrera's ashes will be mixed with the soil and spread under a Redwood tree within a 20-acre forest in Mendocino County, which is owned by Better Place Forests. 

Carrera is one of many customers who have chosen an alternative death care option, joining a growing subsection of people spurring the traditional funeral and burial services, cremation and spreading ashes into the sea.

For the past five years, Better Place Forests, which some have called a death care startup, has purchased swaths of forests across California and other parts of the country and sold individual trees as plots.

"We are the first sustainable alternative to the traditional funeral and cemetery industry," said Sandy Gibson, co-founder of Better Place Forests, in an interview with Spectrum News. 

Gibson said instead of a traditional funeral focused on a casket, grave and tombstone, Better Place Forests customers choose cremation and bring their ashes to a permanently protected conservation area.

"They become part of the nutrients that support that tree and that forest," he said. 

In August, the San Francisco-based company, founded in 2016, opened its ninth conservation forest in Lake Arrowhead. The company acquired the 51-acre plot of land from the San Bernardino Land Trust for $1 million, according to commercial real estate data site Reonomy. 

Better Place Forests is among several new alternatives to the traditional end-of-life or death care industry. The high cost of traditional burials, lack of land for cemeteries, movement to return to the earth and even climate change have pushed more people to seek alternative death care services. 

According to the National Funeral Directors Association, by 2040, nearly 80% of people in the U.S. will choose cremation. In 2010, cremation accounted for 40%. The median cost of a funeral, burial and a vault (the concrete cover covering the casket) was $9,135 in 2019. The price did not include other costs such as cemetery burial plot, monument, flowers or obituary. 

For several years, niche death care companies have begun sprouting to serve people seeking a natural return to the earth. 

Green burials such as being buried in an eco-friendly willow casket, burial pods that grow under trees, and human composting have grown popular. 

Earlier this year, a bill circulated through the California legislature that would have legalized human composting through a process called reduction. Currently, California only allows two methods: burial and cremation.

"Reduction transforms human remains into soil through accelerated decomposition using natural materials," according to the AB 501 bill introduced by California Assemblymember Cristina Garcia.

AB 501 stalled in the Senate Appropriations Committee. California would have joined Washington, Colorado and Oregon if the bill had passed.

The California Catholic Conference and other Catholic organizations have openly opposed the alternative method. 

One thing is clear, experts said, that there is a growing want for people to return to the earth and have their remains connected with nature. 

Gibson, the Better Place Forests executive, said he came up with the company because of his own experience burying his father and mother within two years when he was ten years old. 

When his father died of a stroke suddenly, his mother had to make a hurried decision and choose an old church cemetery near a loud and busy street and bus stop. 

"What you realize over time is that no one will forget the image of your final resting place and end of life story," he said.  

When he grew older, Gibson wanted to find a better final resting place for families to celebrate their loved ones. As someone who loved nature, he thought of a forest. 

"People want to know that they are being remembered in a way that fits their life," said Gibson. "They want to know their family is going to be taken care of when they are gone."

The cost to be memorialized at the Lake Arrowhead Better Place Forest conservation area starts at $4,900, not including cremation, and can go up to $30,000 depending on the size of the tree and the number of family members beneath that tree.

In California, people are allowed to scatter the ashes of their loved ones on private land, the ocean, and public and federal land as long as they receive a permit or written permission.

So why choose Better Place Forests?

Gibson said the money goes toward paying for permanent protection of the tree, the memorial service, contribution to an endowment fund that helps the area take preventive measures to prevent forest fires and the beautification of the area.

When she visited the Better Place Forest location at Point Arena in Mendocino County, Carrera said she felt at peace. She knew this was where she wanted to lay her final remains.  

As she walked and toured the site looking for her tree, she remembers stopping at a specific area and marveling at the scene. 

"There's this huge opening [in the forest] where I thought would be great for a ceremony, and then I saw this stump," she said. "On top of that beautiful Redwood stump was a vine connected to a young Redwood tree, and growing on it were plants and flowers."

"I said to myself, 'How beautiful to be connected to an ancient Redwood tree along with its offspring,'" she said.

She said choosing her burial site gave her strength and family comfort. 

"They know that I'm in a place that I love and see it in a positive way and that this is how I want them to celebrate my life," she said.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated Sandy Gibson’s title at Better Place Forests. The error has been corrected. (Oct. 29, 2021)