Leave No Trace
|
|
Leave No Trace is a philosophy of hiking and backpacking. Proponents of Leave No Trace believe that individual actions in the backcountry accumulate to degrade the wilderness experience. Therefore, any individual in the backcountry should behave in such a way that future visitors cannot tell that anyone was there before. The slogan "Leave no trace" (LNT) summarizes a trend among hikers to address concerns about conservation of the ecosystems and scenery that often motivate hikes.
The roots of LNT can be traced to the 1960s and 1970s [1] (http://lnt.org/about/history.html). In those decades, the United States Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the United States National Park Service started to teach their non-motorized visitors how to have minimal impact. Also in the 70s, groups such as the Sierra Club were advocating minimum impact camping techniques. A pilot program in the 80s between the Boy Scouts of America and the High Uintas Wilderness tried to reach a wide audience. Finally, a national LNT program was developed in 1990 by the United States Forest Service in conjunction with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS).
Leave No Trace provides specific guidance for backcountry behavior, which is summarized in the following 7 principles:
- Plan Ahead and Prepare: Poorly prepared people, when presented with unexpected situations, often resort to high-impact solutions that degrade the outdoors or put themselves at risk. Poor planning can result in improperly located campsites because groups failed to plan enough time to reach their intended destination, or improper campfires or excessive trash because of failure to plan meals or bring proper equipment.
- Camp and Travel on Durable Surfaces: Damage to land occurs when surface vegetation or communities of organisms are trampled beyond repair. The resulting barren area leads to unusable trails, campsites and soil erosion.
- In high-use areas, LNT directs people to concentrate activity, which makes further damage unlikely.
- In areas of very little or no use, LNT directs people to spread out. Taking different paths when hiking off-trail will avoid creating new trails that cause erosion. Dispersing tents and equipment, and moving camp daily will avoid creating permanent-looking camp sites.
- Dispose of Waste Properly: Though most trash and litter in the backcountry is not significant in terms of the long term ecological health of an area, it does rank high as a problem in the minds of many backcountry visitors. Many people believe that trash and litter detract from an area's naturalness. Thus, LNT directs that trash and litter should be packed out. Further, backcountry users create body waste and waste water which requires proper disposal according to LNT.
- Waste water: Avoiding soap and dispersing dishwater far away from natural water sources will prevent contamination.
- Human waste: Proper human waste disposal prevents spread of disease, exposure to others, and speeds decomposition. Catholes, 6 to 8 inches deep and 200 feet from water, are often the easiest and most practical way to dispose of feces.
- Leave What You Find: Leaving rocks, plants, archaeological artifacts and other objects as found will allow others a sense of discovery. Similarly, LNT directs people to minimize site alterations, such as digging tent trenches, hammering nails into trees, permanently clearing an area of rocks or twigs.
- Minimize Use and Impact of Fire: LNT directs people to use lightweight camp stoves, instead of fires, because the naturalness of many areas has been degraded by overuse of fires and the increasing demand for firewood. If a campfire is constructed, LNT suggests that the best place is within an existing fire ring in a well-placed campsite. True LNT fires show no evidence of having ever been constructed.
- Respect Wildlife: If enough people approach or interfere with wildlife, it can be disruptive to animal populations.
- Be Considerate of Other Visitors: Following hiking etiquette and maintaining quiet allows visitors to through the wilderness with minimal impact on other users.
External links
- Leave No Trace organization (http://lnt.org)
- BLM Leave No Trace principles (http://www.blm.gov/education/lnt/principles.html) (public domain source)