In fact, Karori Cemetery has run out of room and Makara Cemetery is predicted to be full by 2038.

One proposed solution is a rent-a-grave scheme, where the deceased can be buried for a period of time. Just how long this period would be has yet to be decided. Suggestions range between 15 and a hundred years.

Once the "lease" expires, the proposal suggests exhuming the remains and either relocating or cremating them. The grave would then be repurposed for another person.

Although nothing has yet been decided - the idea is still at its concept stage - preliminary research suggests some Wellingtonians would not be averse to the idea.

Of 130 people surveyed for Wellington council's report into the idea, 40 percent said they somewhat or strongly agreed with the idea while 50 percent either somewhat or strongly disagreed.

If approved by the Council, the plan will be released for public feedback. It is expected that by May 2021 the a final plan will be ready for presentation to councillors.

Wellington City councillor Fleur Fitzsimmons says she understands the proposed plan is "not for everybody."

"It's not something I would be comfortable doing for my family but there has been interest from other [Wellington] residents."

If the scheme were to go ahead, it would not impact existing graves, she says.

She says temporary ownership of a grave is "common" across other parts of the world and would need to be introduced "with real sensitivity and care."

The problem Wellington cemeteries are facing is echoed around the country, across the ditch in Australia and - in fact - throughout much of the world.

It's a concern New Zealand's funeral directors have been grappling with for some time.

The laws in New Zealand are old and there's a sense here that the rules need to be relaxed about where and how you dispose of a body, they say.

Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand CEO David Moger says attitudes are changing on both sides of the Tasman.

"One of the key things around that is being able to make sure families get what they need, because the process of a funeral and a meaningful funeral and the process of grieving are very, very personal," he says.

Other countries have long abandoned the idea of resting in peace in the same plot forever.

As an example, although Singapore, Germany and Belgium offer public graves at no charge for the first 20 years or so, families can either pay to keep them or the graves are recycled.

After that, the most recent residents are moved further into the ground or to another site, often a mass grave.

Source

• NewsHub
• TVNZ
• Image: RNZ

A group of volunteers, including the descendants of the veterans, have spruced up their grave sites by concreting and painting them.

They also repaired the headstones, as part of the Nikao Cemetery Restoration Project.

Gloria Walker was one of 65 Australian cancer patients buried at the Nikao cemetery on the Cook Islands' largest island, Rarotonga, after seeking treatment from Milan Brych.

When her daughter Cate was in the Cook Islands tending to her mother's grave, her husband Paul Morrisey found an Anzac headstone which had washed onto the beach.

"There was so much damage in the cemetery. There were headstones down on the shoreline and it was just a terrible mess," Walker said.

"It was completely overgrown, it was just full of coconut trees, vines, I didn't even know there were graves there.

"It was a complete jungle.

"I thought 'that's it, I'm doing something about this now.'"

Walker used social media to assemble a team of volunteers to restore headstones, and concrete and paint the grave sites.

She said that, during the years of neglect, at least 10 graves had been washed away in the tourist and cancer patient area.

Some of the ANZAC graves had also disappeared, and Walker went through the archives to establish how many soldiers had been buried on the site.

More than 300 Cook Islanders served with the Maori contingent in Europe and the Mediterranean during the Great War.

It is thought that this graveyard contains the largest group of Cook Islands veterans buried anywhere in the world.

Source

• abc.net.au
• radionz.co.nz
• cookislandsnews.com
• Image: Cate Walker

Father Victor Roche from the Catholic Bishops Conference of PNG and the Solomon Islands said although they prefer burial, the church also accepts cremation.

But pastor Peter Dege from the True Church of Jesus Christ disagreed outright, saying there are about 35 Bible scriptures that highlighted burial as a Christian practice.

He said PNG as a Christian nation should not deviate from this tradition.

He also said that Port Moresby, let alone PNG as a whole, has a lot land that can be used as a burial ground.

However, the city authorities disagree. They say Port Moresby is running out of land for burials. There is only one public cemetery in the city and it is fast running out of space.

Nation Capital District Commission (NCDC) chief health surveyor Isoa More, who is in charge of the cemetery, said it was built in the 1960s and is halfway there right now, but sooner or later the 779-hectare land mass will no longer accommodate the dead.

The last patches of available land at the cemetery may be used up within several years.

Already burials are taking up the nearby hills that once were the natural boundaries of the flat area purposely designated for the public cemetery along the Sogeri Road.

In acknowledging the seriousness of the issue, city manager Leslie Alu said in the worse case scenario, the commission would, based on costs, pursue either cremation or keeping bodies in a locker system in a storage facility.

Health Minister, Sir Puka Temu, says cremation must be considered.

He said it was time to discuss whether to provide land or to go against tradition and consider the option of cremation.

"I think those are the issues that we really need to discuss."

Source

• Post Courier
• Post Courier
• Image: Eureka Street

Instead of spending some $50,000 per acre to plant weed-free, irrigated turf, Robert Seelig, executive director of cemeteries for the diocese of Oakland and Tom Richardson, director of development, decided to plant some grape vines instead, costing just $17,000 an acre.

At first, the Bishop's Vineyard wines were used for Communion and served at charity events.

Then in 2013, winemaker Shauna Rosenblum of Alameda's Rock Wall Wine Company agreed to produce the wines for the Diocese of Oakland.

"There are definitely some jokes one could make about the wines having a specific minerality," says Rosenblum. Continue reading

"It was a spontaneous demonstration to denounce the repeated attacks against holy places carried out by an irresponsible minority, that threatens the peaceful coexistence among peoples," said Bishop William Shomali, vicar of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

Since February last year, militant groups have attacked Christian churches, monasteries, and cemeteries, as well as Islamic mosques.

The most recent attack was aimed at the Protestant cemetery on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, where tombstones were damaged and racist graffiti written on the walls.

Some of the damaged graves belong to famous figures from the 19th and 20th centuries, a key period in Jerusalem's history. Among them are a German diplomat, the founder of an orphanage who was a significant contributor to modernising the city, and a relative of the owners of a prominent hotel.

More than 100 Christians took part in the demonstration, which went from the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre to Catholic and Protestant cemeteries which had been vandalised.

The participants sang and recited prayers along the way, spreading a statement in which they denounced acts of intimidation against monasteries, cemeteries, churches and mosques.

High-profile Christian sites that have been vandalised within the past year include the Trappist monastery at Latrun, outside Jerusalem, where vandals burned a door and spray-painted "Jesus is a monkey" on the century-old building, a Baptist church in Jerusalem, and other monasteries.

Christian clergymen often speak of being spat at by ultra-Orthodox religious students while walking around Jerusalem's Old City.

Over the past three years, 17 Christian sites in the Holy Land have been reported vandalised, apparently by militant extremist groups close to the Jewish settler movement.

But Search for Common Ground, a nongovernmental group that monitors press reports of attacks on religious sites, says the number is actually higher, but Christian leaders choose not to report many attacks.

Sources:

Associated Press

Fides

Image: Fox News