Our Team

Mary Ann Perry
Mary Ann is committed to supporting the community in understanding after-death care and disposition options, especially home funerals and green burials. Mary Ann’s connection to the ranch began in 2010 with coordinating a teen girls camp with The Rose Circle (now Rogue Valley Mentoring). Her magical wedding weekend at our campground was in 2014. She lives in Ashland with her husband David and Iggy the cat.

Suzanne Willow & Lanita Witt
Owners Suzanne Willow and Lanita Witt are dedicated to the conservation of a 445-acre gem located at 5,000’ elevation within southern Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument near Ashland. Since 1985, they have focused on restoring balanced working forests and wetlands, and improving wildlife habitat. The owners are committed to land conservation, restoration, and regenerative organic agriculture.
To carry this commitment forward in perpetuity, they established The Forest Conservation Burial Ground as an extension of stewardship beyond their lifetimes.

Maura Bobbitt
Born and raised in San Antonio, TX, Maura began to shift her career towards death rights advocacy in 2020. She now works as a death rights advocate and mortuary scientist-in-training after graduating from San Antonio College’s Mortuary Science program in 2024. Her work is focused on envisioning a future where our death and grief practices can be individually- and community-focused, radically accepting, environmentally-friendly, and divested from capitalist forces.
While working at the Cibolo Center for Conservation, an environmental nonprofit, Maura honed her passion for sustainable land stewardship, regenerative farming practices, and nature-based education. When she learned about the ways our death practices can become part of the conservation of nature, she found her life’s work. Death advocacy brings together her passion for education, environmental conservation, and community action, uniting her varied experience in an array of different fields.
In her spare time, Maura enjoys traveling, songwriting, taking long plant walks, and exploring nature with her socially awkward dog, Bill.

Joanne Kliejunas
Joanne Kliejunas joined our small team in 2019 as a volunteer eager to help us make natural burial an option in our community. Joanne has taught classes in the Ashland area to encourage end-of-life decision making by completing an advance directive and to prompt reflection and conversations with loved ones about life, death and their connectedness. As a textile artist, she encourages our clients to select shrouds repurposed from natural textiles that have been meaningful in their lives. She has also salvaged beautiful, slightly damaged table and bed linens and prepared them as shrouds for purchase from The Forest. Joanne’s professional experience as a non-profit manager has contributed to The Forest’s development and planning, as well as outreach in our community.

Laura Hardin
Laura joins our nimble team at Willow-Witt Ranch and The Forest Conservation Burial Ground as an experienced operations leader committed to developing and implementing sustainable business practices and people-first development strategies. With over 15 years experience at the intersection of business design, marketing and sales she is a savvy producer, project and people manager. Laura is an avid community builder, organizer, and event planner with an unwavering commitment to client satisfaction.
Laura is the proud mom of two young girls, a seasoned trail runner, mushroom forager, and music appreciator. Her newest hobbies include perfecting her pizza recipes, setting new PR’s on the ranch’s Turtle Trot loop, and finding her way into birding circles. She also promises some day she will learn to sew and write her magnum opus on the guitar.

Larry Lacerte
Larry Lacerte recently moved to Oregon from Colorado. He was drawn to working at Willow-Witt Ranch by a desire to learn more about off-grid living, working with animals and market gardening. He enjoys hiking, biking, skiing and making music, and is looking forward to exploring his new surroundings.

Esther Petrocine
Esther has a diverse background as a woman of many trades. She feels most in alignment with the flow of life when connected to the cycles of life, death, and transformation. She is a mother of two young children, shepherd of hair sheep and goats, and a farmhand at Willow-Witt ranch. She is passionate about growing food and raising animals in a way that mimics nature’s intelligence and believes that observation is an important skill in helping humans feel connected to life on earth, each other, and ourselves.
Contact Us
PHONE
info@theforestconservationburial.org
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