Dr Abby Buckley

Our facilitator and creator of the Eco Coffin Project is Dr Abby Buckley. Abby is a community educator, researcher, author and social ecologist who finds guidance and inspiration from nature on how to positively embrace death in our everyday lives so we feel connected, empowered and enlivened.

She became interested in this field after the sudden death of her son, Robbie, in a car crash. Abby and her family had no idea how to deal with Robbie’s death. They made many decisions they now deeply regret and cannot change. If only she had known then what she knows now. This feeling is what drives Abby’s passion to inform people how our death system works so they know what is possible and can make informed decisions.

Death Cafes, Before I Die Walls, Death Over Dinner and Dying To Know Days are some of the conversation-starting community events she has facilitated over the last 10 years along with being an event speaker on topics such as Natural Burial.

Her close network and knowledge of the industry developed while working at Adelaide Cemeteries and then as a Funeral Celebrant. Her passion for working as a community educator emerged during her time as a social science researcher achieving her Master of Education – Social Ecology (with the Dean’s Award) and her PhD. Her doctoral thesis is titled: Creative practices for becoming with death while vitally alive.

The Eco Coffin Project is a constantly evolving community program for people keen to become ok with death so they can creatively embrace planning their end-of-life through an empowered sustainability lens. What Abby and others have experienced, is that by becoming ok with death as a normal accepted part of our everyday life, we actually become more enlivened and highly motivated to live a wonderful fulfilled life.

Dr Abby Buckley is a member of: