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Official Leave No Trace
Website
Development of the U.S. Leave No Trace Program:
An Historical Perspective
Jeffrey L. Marion and Scott E. Reid
January 2001
Basic Principles
Additional Info on Principles
Jeff Marion is the Leader of the Cooperative
Park Studies Unit, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, U.S. Geological
Survey and a Board Member of Leave No Trace, Inc.
Scott Reid is Education and Projects Manager, Leave No
Trace, Inc.
Introduction
The goal of the U.S. Leave No Trace educational program
is to avoid or minimize impacts to natural area resources and help ensure
a positive recreational experience for all visitors. America’s public
lands are a finite resource whose social and ecological values are linked
to the integrity of their natural conditions and processes. Land managers
face a perennial struggle in their efforts to achieve an appropriate
balance between the competing mandates to preserve natural and cultural
resources and provide high quality recreational use. Visitor education
designed to instill low impact ethics and skills is a critical management
component and is seen as a light-handed approach that can reduce the need
for more direct and regulatory forms of management.
"Wilderness management is 80-90 percent education and
information and 10 percent regulation." Max Peterson, former Chief of
the U.S. Forest Service, 1985.
"Education...is a preemptive strike...to teach the
American people how to enjoy the wilderness without destroying it. All
other methods merely try to repair the damage after it is done. Stronger
wilderness education programs would dramatically decrease the need for law
enforcement and cleanup." James Bradley, former staff member,
Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands, U.S. House of
Representatives
This paper describes the historical development of the
U.S. Leave No Trace (LNT) educational program. It begins with a review of
the need for the program and traces it’s conception and early development
in the 1970’s, revitalization in 1990, creation of Leave No Trace, Inc. in
1994, and the current status. The paper concludes with a discussion of the
elements that have made it successful and recommendations for the
development of similar educational programs.
The Need
America’s recreation lands, including private, local,
state and federal holdings, are being used and enjoyed by more and more
people. The most dramatic increases in outdoor recreation occurred in the
1960’s when hiking, camping and backpacking first became popular. For
example, use of National Forest primitive areas and wilderness tripled
during the 1960’s and public land visitation continues to increase.
Recreation visits to the U.S. Forest Service lands have jumped from 4.6
million in 1924 to 900 million in 1999. Similarly, recreation visits to
National Park Service areas were 33 million in 1950, increasing more than
five-fold to 172 million in 1970, with more modest increases to 258
million in 1990, and 287 million in 1999.
This magnitude of recreation visitation periodically
raises the issue in the popular media of whether Americans are "Loving
their parks to death." One hiker venturing off the trail or one group
creating a new campsite may seem of little significance, but the combined
effects of millions of such instances leave a substantial and cumulative
mark on the land. Trampling by foot and horse traffic causes loss of
vegetation cover and change in species composition, exposure, compaction,
and erosion of soil, damage to trees, campfire scars, litter and
improperly disposed human or dog waste (Hammitt and Cole 1998, Leung and
Marion 2000). Such changes can also degrade the quality of outdoor
experiences because they are most evident along trails and at recreation
or camping sites where visitors spend the majority of their time.
The expansion and proliferation of visitor-created
campsites and trails also increase the aggregate area of human disturbance
and fragment wildlife habitat. Disturbance of wildlife can displace them
from critical foraging or nesting habitats while individuals that obtain
human food become beggars or nuisance animals that must be relocated or
killed (Knight and Temple 1995). Archaeological and cultural resources are
also at risk from visitors who climb around to explore ruins or take
artifacts like pottery shards as souvenirs. Increasing recreational
visitation also causes crowding along trails and at campsites, which
diminishes solitude. Incompatible activities or encounters with
discourteous visitors can lead to conflicts between groups.
Unfortunately, research has shown that the majority of
recreation-associated resource impacts occur with initial or low levels of
use. For example, on campsites in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area
Wilderness, 95% of the total loss of tree seedlings and 61% of the
increase in soil compaction occurred on sites receiving just 12 nights of
use/year (Marion and Merriam 1985). Experimental trampling studies have
consistently documented curvilinear responses between the amount of
trampling and the severity of damage to vegetation and soils (Cole 1993,
1995). Impacts occur rapidly at initial or low use levels but the rate of
loss diminishes as maximum change approaches 100 percent. These studies
also demonstrate substantial differences in the ability of different
vegetation and soil types to resist trampling damage and in their ability
to recover from disturbance (Cole 1987, Leung and Marion 2000). Some
important implications of these findings are that impacts can be
effectively minimized by concentrating recreational traffic on the most
resistant surfaces, including rock, sand, bare soil, snow, and grassy
groundcovers.
Sustaining outstanding natural resource conditions and
recreational opportunities are primary goals for public land managers,
most of whom operate under the dual "preservation" and "use" legal
mandates. Research has demonstrated that resource degradation is an
inevitable consequence of natural area visitation. Similarly, as visitor
use expands, so too will visitor encounters, jeopardizing opportunities
for solitude. The challenge for managers is to eliminate avoidable impacts
and to minimize those impacts that are unavoidable. For example, visitors
who substitute camping stoves for campfires avoid a host of resource
impacts related to the gathering and burning of firewood. Managers can
achieve such ends through regulations, i.e., prohibiting campfires, or
through education, i.e., highlighting campfire-related resource impacts
and the advantages of using stoves. Effective educational interventions
can enhance visitor outdoor ethics, encouraging visitors to modify their
own behavior through the adoption of low impact practices. Such indirect
approaches preserve visitor freedom from regulations and can also delay or
forgo the need to limit visitor use.
Educational programs such as LNT provide a vehicle for
promoting awareness of recreation impacts and encouraging visitors to
become knowledgeable about how to reduce it. To halt and reverse current
trends of recreation-caused resource degradation, visitors must become
aware of their responsibility to reduce their impact on the land and to
the experiences of other visitors. Low impact ethics and skills need to
become a standard code of conduct that promotes the stewardship practices
necessary to protect the ecological and social health of recreation lands.
Program Conception and Early Development
As wildland use continued to expand in the 1960’s, 70’s
and 80’s, visitors to public lands began to witness the degradation of
their favorite trails and campsites. The development of low impact hiking
and camping practices occurred incrementally over this time period. The
federal agencies, notably the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) but also the
Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the National Park Service (NPS)
developed numerous brochures during these years variously called
Wilderness Manners, Wilderness Ethics, Minimum Impact Camping, and
No-Trace Camping. In the late 60’s and early 70’s wilderness managers had
initially applied regulations to address visitor impact problems but
realized a need to develop an educational program to supplement the
regulations. In 1979, Jim Bradley, a USFS wilderness specialist in the
Pacific Northwest, wrote about the need for an educational approach for
managing recreation impacts (Bradley 1979). He noted that a purely
regulatory approach is inappropriate because: 1) regulations antagonize
the public rather than win their support, 2) most impacts are not from
malicious acts, they result from an insensitivity to the consequences of
one’s actions and from a lack of knowledge regarding appropriate low
impact practices, and 3) enforcement of regulations is difficult in
wildlands due to their large and remote nature.
USFS wilderness managers developed an educational
program in the mid-70’s that emphasized personal communication at busy
wilderness accesses. Wilderness Information Specialists (WIS’s) sought out
visitors using a friendly hospitable approach to provide information that
included no-trace travel and camping tips. These programs evolved in the
early 80’s into a more formal "No-Trace" program that relied on a
humanistic approach emphasizing the cultivation of new wilderness ethics
and more sustainable no-trace travel and camping practices. The success of
this program led to interagency coordination and in 1987 the USFS, NPS,
and BLM cooperatively developed and distributed a pamphlet titled Leave No
Trace Land Ethics.
During this time period a number of books and papers
were also written about wildland ethics and minimum impact camping
practices. Books include The Wilderness Handbook (Petzoldt 1974),
the Sierra Club’s Walking Softly in the Wilderness (Hart 1977),
Backwoods Ethics: Environmental Concerns for Hikers and Campers
(Waterman and Waterman 1979), and Soft Paths (Hampton and Cole
1988). These books highlighted the advantages of low-impact camping and
actively promoted a ‘clean camping’ crusade. They also provided ‘how to’
advice on travel and camping practices that would help recreationists
lessen their individual impact. Similarly, the scientific community
contributed a number of papers in conference proceedings and journals. For
example, Fazio’s paper Information and education techniques to improve
minimum impact use knowledge in wilderness areas in the 1978
Recreational Impact on Wildlands conference (Fazio 1979), Managing
campfire impacts in the backcountry (Cole and Dalle-Molle 1982),
Wilderness campsite selection: What should users be told (Cole and
Benedict 1983), and Low-impact recreational practices for wilderness
and backcountry (Cole 1989).
Development of a National Program
A lack of national leadership, funding, and training
had limited the effectiveness of early minimum impact educational efforts
in the 1970’s and 80’s, including a pilot educational effort with the Boy
Scouts of America and the BLM in the High Uintas Wilderness area in Utah.
By 1990 the clear need for visitor education, coupled with increasing
knowledge about visitor impacts from research, prompted the USFS to
approach the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) to develop hands-on
minimum impact training. (This training for land managers would eventually
develop into the present day Master Educator course.) The "Leave No Trace"
phrase had been designated within the USFS as the name for minimum-impact
messages targeted to non-motorized recreational activities. The intent was
to promote a single message in the place of various permutations developed
over the years.
Also in 1990, the USFS convened a committee to discuss
the potential for a national program. The goal in promoting this phrase
consistently was to develop the message in much the same way as the
successful Smokey Bear (forest fire) and Woodsy Owl (litter) campaigns.
The USFS had created a similar national program known as Tread Lightly in
1985 to provide a focus for educational messages geared to motorized
visitors ( www.treadlightly.org,
800-966-9900).
The USFS formalized a partnership with NOLS to develop
a written LNT educational curriculum for wildland visitors. NOLS agreed to
this offer in 1990 and a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed with
the USFS in 1991. NOLS is a non-profit school founded in 1965 "to be the
leading source and teacher of wilderness skills and leadership that serve
people and the environment." NOLS courses visit remote backcountry and
wilderness settings and are generally one to three months in duration. The
school has long been a recognized leader in developing and teaching
minimum impact hiking and camping practices. This knowledge was compiled
and published in the book Soft Paths by Bruce Hampton and David
Cole in 1987 (revised in 1995). NOLS is based in Lander, Wyoming but has
branch schools in many other states and countries.
NOLS’ involvement in the LNT program marked the
beginning of the partnership model that continues to the present day. NOLS
was instrumental in working with the USFS to make the program
science-based by collecting relevant scientific literature and consulting
with scientists in the review and development of low impact hiking and
camping skills. NOLS also developed the ethics and experiential training
aspects of the LNT program, the capstone of which is a five-day Master
Educator course for land managers, outfitters, outdoor educators, and
others. The first LNT Masters course was taught to agency staff in the
Wind River Mountains of Wyoming in September 1991. NOLS conducted five
Masters courses in 1992, including one for non-agency personnel.
"We have long recognized education as the best
strategy for reversing the trend of damage to wilderness and undeveloped
areas caused by recreation visitors... Accordingly, the Forest Service
developed and has actively sponsored Leave No Trace as our outdoor ethics
program for non-motorized users..." F. Dale Robertson, former Chief of
the U.S. Forest Service, letter to regional foresters, April 1992
As land managers learned of the successful educational
partnership between the USFS and NOLS, other agencies became interested in
participating in the emerging national program. The Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) formally joined the partnership in May, 1993, followed by
the National Park Service (NPS) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)
in 1994. A new MOU was signed in 1994 to formalize the LNT program
partnership between USFS, NOLS, BLM, NPS and the USFWS. The MOU committed
the federal agencies to provide overall steering and direction for the
national program, with NOLS supplying curricula, training, and the
development and distribution of LNT information. NOLS continued to manage
the program by producing and selling brochures, videos, posters, and other
educational materials via a toll-free number and a website.
NOLS also worked with the agencies and scientists to
develop a Mission Statement, Strategic Goals, and eight LNT Principles
(providing a focus for more specific educational practices - see text
box). The mission statement called for the development of a nationally
recognized minimum impact backcountry educational system that would
educate wildland user groups, federal land management agencies and the
public through training and educational materials. Strategic goals focused
on the development of high quality, science-based educational materials
and courses for selected target regions and recreational activities, and
networking to disseminate educational ideas and programs nationwide.
For each target region and activity, NOLS has also
developed comprehensive Master’s course curricula and a series of LNT
Outdoor Skills & Ethics (S&E) booklets. The first 14-page booklet was
produced in 1992, complementing and eventually replacing an LNT pamphlet
and booklet set created by the USFS in 1992 in cooperation with the BLM,
NPS, and the Izaak Walton League. Each year additional S&E volumes have
been added to the series, which currently numbers 16. The S&E series are
developed through a comprehensive process involving the integration of
research findings, backcountry travel and camping expertise from the
target region and activities, and consultations with land managers from
different agencies in each area. The booklets are written to convey the
most effective LNT travel and camping practices while instilling an
abiding respect and appreciation for wild places and their inhabitants.
The rationale for each practice and the need to temper their application
with good judgement is emphasized, along with the need for visitors to
assume the responsibility to educate themselves and apply the learned
skills.
Creation of Leave No Trace, Inc.
Although NOLS provided successful leadership in guiding
development of the interagency LNT program, partnerships with other
educational organizations and adequate funding from the outdoor industry
remained critical constraints on program growth. Direct federal funding of
the LNT program has always been quite limited and is often tied to
specific projects. Land management agencies and NOLS recognized a need to
involve outdoor product manufacturers, retail stores and other outdoor
education organizations in the LNT program. Accordingly, in November 1993,
an outdoor recreation summit was convened involving NOLS, the Outdoor
Recreation Coalition of America (ORCA), the Sporting Goods Manufacturing
Association (SGMA) and other outdoor manufacturing representatives. At the
summit, these groups assessed their support of the LNT program’s
partnership concept and the creation of a non-profit organization.
LNT, Inc. was registered as a 501©(3) non-profit
educational program in 1994 and rapidly gained momentum with the support
of 24 agency, commercial, and non-profit partners. Fund-raising dominated
the organization’s agenda during the initial years. Seed money to start
LNT, Inc. came from NOLS, SGMA and ORCA. By 1996 the organization had two
full-time staff and a budget of $108,425 supported largely from 35 outdoor
recreation manufacturers and retailers. The organization’s structure
includes a Board of Directors, LNT Partners, and LNT Members. The bylaws
established a Board of Directors as the policy-setting arm of the program.
The Board numbered eight individuals in 1995, representing the federal
agencies (non-voting), NOLS, science, and other non-profit organizations.
LNT Partners are corporations and organizations interested in supporting
the LNT program through visible participation, sponsorship and support of
LNT information dissemination. LNT Members are private individuals who use
public lands. Members are asked to ensure that their personal outdoor
recreation practices are consistent with LNT skills and ethics and to
assist in training others.
The LNT Educational Model emphasizes the development
and dissemination of effective and accurate LNT skills and ethics. The
knowledge and expertise for this model is gleaned from the federal
agencies involved in LNT, scientific research, industry, NOLS and other
outdoor educators. Core LNT literature includes the Skills & Ethics
booklet series and LNT plastic reference tags that list the principles and
core statements describing low impact travel and camping practices.
Training opportunities include a five-day Master’s course, a two-day
Trainer course, LNT Workshops, and Public Contacts:
- Master Educator course
- provides comprehensive coverage of LNT skills, ethics, and
teaching practices, including four days of experiential learning in
a backcountry setting. Intended for agency staff and outdoor
educators who will train others to train the public.
- Trainer course - an
abbreviated version of the Master’s course for individuals who will
be training the public directly, including agency staff, youth group
leaders, and outdoor adventure program staff.
- Workshops - formal but
shorter duration LNT instruction, such as an afternoon session for
Boy Scouts or an evening campfire presentation.
- Public contacts -
informal LNT instruction in visitor centers, at trailheads, and in
the backcountry.
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Current Status
Since its creation, the national LNT program has grown
steadily in staffing, funding, educational materials and national
visibility. LNT, Inc. currently has 9 full time staff (see Appendix A),
with the continuing strong participation of the federal agencies and
partners such as NOLS (4 Outreach Office staff), and the Appalachian
Mountain Club (1 Education Office staff), a new training partner in 1999.
LNT, Inc.’s budget has grown from $108, 425 in 1995 to $630,000 in 2000.
The LNT principles, revised twice since the program’s creation, now number
seven (see text box). Educational materials include a series of 16 Skills
& Ethics booklets on environments ranging from Tropical Forests to Deserts
and Canyons to the Alaskan Tundra, and for recreational activities as
diverse as caving, rock climbing, and backcountry horse use. One booklet,
several pamphlets, and a video have been prepared in Spanish for use in
Central and South American countries. The program’s national visibility
and success are addressed in a later section.
The current mission of LNT, Inc. is to promote and
inspire responsible outdoor recreation through education, research and
partnerships. This mission has evolved from the program’s genesis, with
its focus on wilderness and backcountry visitation, to also address
recreation use in more accessible ‘frontcountry’ settings, e.g., car
campgrounds, day-use areas, and urban parks. This shift was made to
address growing problems with resource and social impacts such as dogs and
dog waste management, litter, graffiti, and visitor crowding and conflict
in more developed recreation settings. Non-motorized or human-powered
recreational activities remain the target audience, however, which
complements parallel educational efforts by the Tread Lightly program that
address motorized recreational activities.
The current composition of the LNT, Inc. Board of
Directors reflects the changing nature of the program. Corporate
representatives have now joined the members from the federal agencies,
non-profit organizations, and outdoor educators. Past and present
representation on the Board of Directors includes: USFS, BLM, NPS, US
Geological Survey, NOLS, the Outdoor Recreation Coalition of America, the
International Mountain Biking Association, Colorado State Parks, Walt
Disney Corporation, Sports Afield Magazine, Boy Scouts of America, Subaru
of America, and others.
Current bylaws allow up to 12 voting Board members who
may serve for two consecutive three-year terms. The Executive Director of
LNT, Inc. is elected by a majority vote of the Board. There are three
designated standing committees including an Executive Committee, Advisory
Committee and Education Review Committee. Of the three committees, the
Executive Committee is comprised totally of Board members while the other
two report to the Board, but have non-Board members. The Executive
Committee consists of the board officers (Chair, Treasurer, and Secretary)
and the Executive Director. The Advisory Committee consists of federal
land managers and other members who assist the Corporation and its Board
in developing an operating plan for the LNT program and implementing and
promoting LNT. The Education Review Committee is comprised of outdoor
educators, land managers, and scientists and oversees LNT training
efforts, curriculum development, and educational material production.
As a non-profit organization, LNT, Inc. seeks funding
from private donors. The majority of LNT, Inc.’s funding is generated from
grants and corporate sponsors. Grants are applied for and received
throughout each fiscal year. Commercial sponsors are asked to contribute
each year based on the company’s total annual sales (e.g., a company with
sales of $25-49 million is asked to contribute $5,000). In return,
corporate sponsors are highlighted in LNT newsletters and publicity
materials. Sponsors are permitted to use LNT educational materials, the
LNT logo and other promotional items. Financial support demonstrates an
organization’s commitment to preserving the condition of public lands and
the quality of recreational experiences to be found there.
Although the financial donations of partners are
essential to the LNT program’s success, so too are the temporal donations
of thousands of volunteers. Individuals who have completed the Master and
Trainer courses commonly volunteer their time to present LNT information
to interested groups. Targeted audiences include youth groups, retail
store employees, guides, and school classes. Federal agency staff also
devotes considerable time conveying LNT information to area visitors, user
groups, and schools and provides numerous LNT messages in forest and park
literature and on trailhead bulletin boards.
The LNT website, managed by NOLS, has become an
important conduit for LNT information as the Internet has become more
publicly accessible. The website ( www.LNT.org)
provides current information on courses, educational skills and ethics
literature, research, LNT partners, and more. Application forms for LNT
courses, scholarships and material donations are also accessible. The
content of all LNT materials, including the Skills and Ethics booklets and
succinct reference tags, is posted on the website and can be downloaded
for printing and distribution. This broad access to all of the LNT
educational material underscores the overall intent of the LNT program.
Namely, to provide accurate, science-based information for all outdoor
recreationists.
Material sales and distribution of printed literature
has increased steadily since LNT, Inc.’s inception. As of September 2000,
materials sales are at an all time high. Year to date, 50,000 Skills and
Ethics booklets and 250,000 plastic reference tags have been distributed;
over 100,000 people have been formally trained in LNT skills and ethics;
and the LNT website has registered more than 100,000 visits. Year to date,
an estimated 10.5 million people have received an LNT "impression"
(defined as an exposure to a logo, sign, booklet or training). Partnership
numbers are also at an all time high, with 239 corporate partners, and
four federal agency partners actively involved in the LNT program. In
1999, the Boy Scouts of America developed a patch recognition program for
Scouts that complete a standard level of LNT education. Since initiation
of the program, over 11,000 patches have been distributed. Statistics and
trends such as these provide one measure of the program’s success.
To-date 1122 individuals have received LNT Master’s
course training, including staff from the USFS (254), BLM (121), NPS
(107), USFWS (4) and from many other organizations such as the Boy Scouts,
Girl Scouts, Backcountry Horsemen, Outward Bound, YMCA, and university
outdoor educators. Individuals from a number of other countries have also
completed the course: Canada, Mexico, Chile, Columbia, Argentina,
Venezuela, Brazil, Finland, Holland, Kenya, and Australia.
Another measure of LNT’s effectiveness is increased
visitor knowledge of LNT skills and ethics and a per-capita reduction in
impacts to resource conditions and to the experiences of other visitors. A
pilot research effort is currently underway to begin empirical evaluations
of the program’s effectiveness. An LNT Laboratory Project was initiated in
the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado in 1999. The goal of this
project is to measure the effect of LNT educational efforts on both
visitor behavior and recreation site resource conditions. In addition to
focusing LNT research on several sites in Colorado, the LNT Laboratory
will supplement area LNT training and outreach efforts. Plans are underway
to replicate the LNT Laboratory model in a different region of the country
beginning in 2002. Limited empirical research on the effectiveness of
educational programs has been conducted in the U.S. However,
administrators and scientists have highlighted the need for such efforts
and methods for their evaluation have been described (Matthews and Riley
1995, Passineau and others 1994).
A variety of diverse educational programs and outreach
initiatives continue to expose wildland visitors to LNT skills and ethics.
One such effort is the Subaru/LNT Traveling Trainer program. This
strategic LNT partnership funds two teams of trained ambassadors to travel
the United States educating land managers, retail store staffs, youth
groups, outfitters and others in LNT. This high-profile education program
effectively brings a convenient, mobile training option to interested
parties across the US.
In 1999, the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) joined LNT,
Inc. as a provider of LNT Master courses. Founded in 1876, the AMC has
84,000 members in the Northeastern U.S. and is the country’s oldest and
most active conservation and recreation organization. The AMC sponsors a
wide range of activities including volunteer-led projects and outings, as
well as trail management, public service programs, research, outdoor
education, and publications. With the presence of the AMC in the eastern
U.S. and NOLS in the west, LNT has educational strongholds in both halves
of the country. For individual states nationwide, LNT, Inc. has recently
developed a State Coordinator program that allows volunteers to guide LNT
efforts within their respective states in exchange for donated material
and logistical support. This state-based presence ensures an active
network of dedicated educators with local knowledge and contacts to spread
the LNT message.
Based on historical donations of time, money and
intellectual property, NOLS has owned the copyright to all LNT written
materials since their first printing. As the information has gained
broader appeal, numerous requests have been made to print all or part of
existing LNT materials in a variety of publications. To ensure adequate
access to LNT information and appropriate recognition of intellectual
property, NOLS and LNT have agreed to share the copyright to the LNT
Skills and Ethics series. To ensure consistency of message and copyright
recognition, use of copyrighted information for printing, distribution and
sale is limited to those individuals and organizations that obtain
permission from LNT, Inc. However, all LNT information has been made
available for viewing and downloading on the LNT website. The program’s
goal has always been to make this information accessible and broadly
available for distribution and use by the public.
Finally, LNT literature continues to be developed by
the scientific community, agencies, and other authors. Three texts on
recreation impacts have been written (Hammitt and Cole 1998, Knight and
Gutzwiller 1995, Liddle 1997), along with a paper summarizing visitor
impact studies in wilderness (Leung and Marion 2000). Doucette and Cole
(1993) provided a comprehensive guide to alternative techniques for
visitor education and Parker (1995) offers a guide to outdoor
ethics-related programs. Agencies contributed to "Teach Leave No Trace:
Activities to teach responsible backcountry skills" (BLM 1996) and "Low
impact food hoists" (Vachowski 1994). A number of new books on low
impact hiking and camping techniques have been published, including a
revision of "Soft Paths" (1995), "The Basic Essentials of
Minimizing Impact on the Wilderness" (Hodgson 1991), "Wild Country
Companion" (Harmon 1994), "Leave No Trace: Minimum Impact Outdoor
Recreation" (Harmon 1997), and "Leave No Trace: A Guide to the New
Wilderness Etiquette" (McGivney 1998).
The Future
The partnership triangle between the federal land
agencies, NOLS, and LNT, Inc., with its corporate and retail supporters,
has been an exceptionally successful model that continues to serve the
program well. Future success requires expanded training, literature
dissemination, and publicity to reach a greater proportion of the public
with consistent educational messages. As agency participation, corporate
activities and publicity expand further we expect that visitor awareness
of LNT educational skills and ethics will increase. Consistency,
repetition, and unified support are critical to the long-term success of
the program.
Other countries have also begun adopting or adapting
the LNT program or have developed their own educational counterparts. For
example, NOLS staff have worked with managers and organizations in Mexico
and other Central and South American countries to initiate ‘No Deje Rastro’
(Leave No Trace) programs. Many of the educational materials have been
translated into Spanish and a number of LNT Master’s courses in Spanish
have been offered.
This paper traced the development of the LNT
educational program in the U.S. and offers some insights into what factors
have contributed to the program’s expansion and success. Such information
may assist other countries in developing their own programs or initiating
ties and adaptations of the U.S. LNT model.
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