Leave No Trace Hiking

On Thursday, November 15th, ASO veteran staff member Jennifer Watts-Mattis will teach on Leave No Trace Hiking. The Free University session begins at 7pm and as always, we'll have snacks. Leave No Trace (http://www.ltn.org) is an organization dedicated to the responsible enjoyment and active stewardship of the outdoors. Jenny has extensive training in outdoor leadership and education and comes to us originally from Amherst, New Hampshire. This summer she worked on staff for the Millbrook Marsh and she always has a ready smile and great story. ASOBlog is convinced that Jen knows more small children in the Central Pennsylvania region that any non-classroom teacher AND she remembers all of their names. ASOBlog chatted with Jen about her life and her passions.

ASOBlog: Jen, thanks for coming to work. Why Leave No Trace? Why is it so important to you?

Jenny W-M: Over the years, I have worked for several nature centers and outdoors education organizations and I've realized that we only get one shot. Leave No Trace is dedicated to training and educating people in how to preserve and protect the great, beautiful and wild places. Call it low impact hiking; call it paying attention to the world around you--that is what I want to be about.

ASOBlog: By now you know that ASOBlog is always curious about childhoods. . . What is your earliest hiking memory?

JWM: (after some thought) Hmm, I remember hiking with my grandfather in Glacier when I was young. He had a big hiking stick (laughing) and I had a little one.

ASOBlog: Dream. What about in 10 years?

JWM: I love being outside. I want to be working at a nature center or as an environmental educator in an urban setting.

ASOBlog: We dug up some history and the goals of Leave No Trace. . . .it's at the end of this. Jen, we look forward to hearing what you have to say on Thursday, November 15th at 7pm. See you in the store!

From the Leave No Trace website (http://www.lnt.org) on the starting of the organization and why is came to be. This is why we call it Free University. . . !

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.

Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics
Mission Statement
The Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics is an educational, nonprofit organization dedicated to the responsible enjoyment and active stewardship of the outdoors by all people, worldwide.

Core Values
1. Is committed to the enjoyment, health and protection of recreational resources on natural lands for all people;
2. Believes that education is the best means to protect natural lands from recreational impacts while helping maintain access for recreation and enjoyment;
3. Is founded on outdoor ethics whereby a sense of stewardship is gained through understanding and connecting with the natural world;
4. Believes that practicing the Leave No Trace principles is the most relevant and effective long-term solution to maintaining the beauty, health of, and access to natural lands;
5. is science-based and builds ethical, pragmatic approaches to resource protection for varying types of outdoor recreation and enjoyment;
6. Strives to build key partnerships that support education programs, training and communities of volunteers, educators, land managers, organizations and corporations committed to teaching and instilling the values of Leave No Trace;
7. Is inclusive, for all people, and focused on all non-motorized recreation activities occurring on natural lands;
8. Is apolitical and dedicated to education;
9. Does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, religion, marital status, military status or disability;
10. Remains committed to its mission, core values, projects and programs without deviation.