Beyond Leave No Trace

Leave No Trace principles admonish visitors to the outdoors to take only pictures and leave only footprints, but at some level, we all know the human presence in the outdoors leaves other indelible effects. The accumulation of footprints themselves form a trail, for a start. We emit carbon getting to and from the trail and park in a paved parking lot, a simultaneously obvious and invisible trace. Our scent affects wildlife behavior. We would reach a fuller understanding of environmental stewardship by better describing our reciprocal relationship with the environment. Leave No Trace principles are a start for those unitiated in outdoor ethics. For those already acquainted, let’s go beyond.

Leave No Trace principles are posted ubiquitously

Leave No Trace consists of 7 simple rules for good outdoor recreation behavior. The campaign is far-reaching and effective, so I need not criticize Leave No Trace. Instead, I use it as a springboard to delve into a more holistic and nuanced picture of our responsibility as environmental stewards. This conversation is occurring throughout the outdoor industry, and I communicate it now as a synthesis of discussions I’ve enjoyed with leaders in my college outdoor leadership program and with my friend Rhetoric on the Appalachian Trail. It is also certainly shaped by my reading of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass.

Grade school and adolescent behaviors

Leave No Trace principles function like the rules made by a parent for their grade schooler. Outdoors, children naturally want to play with wild animals and pick up rocks and flowers. We admonish them to “respect wildlife” and “leave what you find” to correct this behavior, but these commands share the discretional authority of “turn off the TV” or “clean your room.” We all know that people in the outdoors are prone to behave like grade schoolers. Hence, educating the public about Leave No Trace surely improves the quality of our outdoor spaces. Rules, however, do not foster relationship. These sort of rules are backed up not with a bond of responsibility but with an exasperated “because I said so.”

For those of us growing into an outdoors adolescence of sorts, we seek an actual relationship with our planet, beyond dos and don’ts. After all, in social adolescence, we learn to make the right choices in order to flourish, moving beyond role model obedience. We learn to associate actions with consequences – not punishments for rule infraction but outcomes of behavioral choice. We discover that our actions affect other people, who benefit or suffer based on our words and deeds. Leave No Trace principles are an elementary guide that does not grow with us into adolescence. Those of us who already know the rules should take the next step to make decisions based not on rule adherence but rather relational intuition. 

Traces we take and traces we leave

Every relationship is characterized by give and take. By enumerating how we are affected and affect the world as recreators, we prime ourselves to live respectfully. Let’s begin with by considering what we receive outdoors. These intangible benefits vary by individual but commonly include hope, awe, renewal. Humility garnered from witnessing both our smallness in the landscape and the intricateness of insect life, fungal spores, or pollen granules. Separation from hurry, space to foster relationship, physical challenge, connection with wildlife. Crisp water from springs, verdant natural gardens, barren sparseness, records of ancient peoples, prehistoric forests, berries, geologic records, rock.

Now let’s consider the traces we leave. As with our adolescent relationships, all actions have consequences, but not all consequences are bad. We add to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration when traveling the outdoors. This is bad, and we should reduce it. The remaining impacts are more benign and unavoidable. We drink water from clear streams and return it to the soil laden with nitrogen and salts. We bring food to the wilderness and convert it to organic waste that fertilizes the soil, even when buried 6 inches deep. We build a network of roads, parking lots, campgrounds, and shuttle services to facilitate human access. We dig trails, cut logs, build bridges, drill rock. We interact with other people, reducing solitude. The impossibility of leaving no trace is no reason not to follow Leave No Trace principles. The key is to make traces responsibly by being aware of them.

Implications of interconnectedness

Sometimes, we feel guilty about leaving traces. We need not be ashamed, though. After all, are we so different from the other lifeforms inhabiting this planet? Every other species consumes resources and produces waste or byproducts, thus shaping their environment. Grazers like cattle and buffalo prevent grasslands from developing into forest and amplify the growth of the grass itself. Beavers dam streams. Songbirds build nests. Blue whales consume some 4 tons of krill every single day, transferring the portion of this biomass not consumed by whale metabolism to abyssal ecosystems after they die. Trees consume soil nutrients and carbon dioxide, making oxygen as a byproduct. In Earth’s ancient history, the atmosphere contained little oxygen, but photosynthesis singlehandedly generated the 21% of our modern atmosphere made of oxygen. Similar statements of ecological effect could be made for every organism or microorganism on the planet.

Neither technology, morality, nor rationality exempts us humans from participation. We invariably affect our environment with every single thing we do, alongside every creature on Earth. For better and worse, we are inextricably part of ecology. As a result, we have an obligation to take care of the system that sustains us.

A mindset, not a rulebook

This mindset quite naturally extends to other arenas, including to human relationships and to broader environmental issues like response to climate change. We leave impacts and receive gifts everywhere we go.

Let’s examine briefly a broader picture of our relationship with the Earth. As before, we begin by recognizing how the planet provides for us. The sun beams an endless stream of energy to earth, fueling all but the most exceptional plant life, which in turn feeds all animal life. Waters return to fill rivers, powered by solar evaporation. Microbes decompose, and forests regrow after wildfire or clearcutting. A dazzling array of materials can be harvested or synthesized from planetary chemical ingredients. A wealth of foods grow from Earth’s soil – and soil itself is an astounding natural resource, critical to our flourishing. Nutrients, the building blocks of life, recycle and recirculate through elaborate pathways. Resilience – the ability to recover from disruption – imbues all of it. In short, our planet endows us with rich provision.

How ought we to respond as participants in and beneficiaries of this system? Wanton disregard for any element of the system would be absurd if we truly understood our place. We would strive toward minimalism and harmony. On the other hand, I doubt we would see elimination of all impacts to the natural world as the highest form of conservation. We would instead recognize our responsibility as an integrated member of a system and seek to reciprocate the provisions we receive, to conserve via sustainable use.

To summarize

Again, Leave No Trace principles serve a valuable purpose in inculcating proper behaviors for all outdoors users. But we need not stop there. We can reclaim a philosophy of seeing ourselves as interconnected within an ecosystem. This philosophy guides us in gratitude, to recognize Earth’s provision and to make impacts and consume resources responsibly. We are far removed from this mindset, yet in the outdoors, we are most near to reclaiming it. Instead of being told what to do, the onus is on us. Instead of a limited scope, this holistic and relationally-oriented approach knows no bounds. There are no right or wrong answers. Like many worthwhile endeavors, it demands more of us but promises greater reward.

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