The Bührener Tannen Forest Cemetery in Cloppenburg is one of the newer forest cemeteries, having opened in 2022. Since then, a great deal has happened in the area, which is part of the forest cemetery and is managed by the Lower Saxony State Forests/Ahlhorn Forestry Office! The initial two plots with marked trees have now been expanded to include several more, there are many more benches, the prayer area has been given a shelter, and much undergrowth has been cleared from the forest cemetery plots to ensure traffic safety and simplify access. Likewise, the general wish of many people to make burial trees more accessible, even for those with limited mobility, has been met – several new paths have been created in newly developed areas, ensuring the route to the selected tree is short and relatively level. The Bührener Tannen are a huge forest area and, as such, a multifunctional forest. This sometimes causes problems, especially when cyclists use the cemetery grounds – because a FriedWald is, after all, also a cemetery – for cross-country rides or speed along the paths when a funeral party is burying a loved one. Likewise, dogs must be kept on a leash in the FriedWald grounds, and picking up their droppings should be a given – even in the forest. No one wants to step on leaves in dog poop when visiting a grave – and even in a regular cemetery, dog poop would have to be cleaned up. Although you're often not even allowed there with a dog. Likewise, no member of the cemetery wants someone to poop on their grave. That's totally disrespectful and inappropriate. At the parking lot, you'll find a large covered information board with further information about the Bührener Tannen Forest Cemetery, along with the next tour dates, where, among other things, you'll get a more detailed explanation of the plaques on the trees—and you'll find a restroom there. Also good to know.
If you're wondering what the yellow and blue ribbons around trees mean: blue ribbons are trees whose use as burial trees can be purchased by a family or institution. This is like a family plot, and you'll also find plaques on the trees: round, black ones with a CLP and a number. Behind these, you'll find two more plaques: one with a color code for the price and one indicating the number of burial plots that are POSSIBLE under the tree. This means that if, for example, you have a beech tree with a blue ribbon and behind the black tree number plaque is one with an 8, then up to 8 urns can be buried under that tree. Then there are the yellow ribbons, which are community trees. You can choose a spot under such a tree and then essentially have something like an "urn community" under the tree. Sometimes you'll see trees with name plates with many different names on them. These are burial trees where people have said: "I want a forest burial, and I don't care about the location!"
There's also a "shooting star tree" here. Parents can bury their deceased (and cremated) babies there and only have to pay the burial costs, not the location.