October Enews

October 2016

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Updates for Outstanding Outdoor Advocates

EDUCATION IN MOTION Find out when Leave No Trace will be in your neck of the woods!

Tech Tip Videos YOU AS CITIZEN SCIENTIST AUTHORITY OF THE RESOURCE IN 3 EASY STEPS

COVER IMAGE: Taking in the sunset in Rocky Mountain National Park, CO.

Table of contents this is where you come in Letter from the Leave No Trace Executive Director

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The Fantastic 5 Updates for outstanding outdoor advocates

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authority of the resource How you can be most effective with Leave No Trace

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your power as a citizen scientist Your involvement is critical to realize Leave No Trace Education in Every Park

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Traveling Trainer Tech Tips Waterproofing your gear, campfire alternatives, and more

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Top 3 leave no trace videos Hand-picked by your friends at Leave No Trace

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Leave No Trace Pro Shop Pick up a PEAK or TEEN pack today

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Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics | www.LNT.org | 303.442.8222

This is where you come in While walking home with my sevenyear-old, Bode, the other day, we detoured to a little hidden trail, beloved to me because I’ve always considered it off the beaten path and my little secret. As we ambled along, I realized my trail was not the hidden gem I had remembered. Bode, a curious guy with a fine sense of humor, kept pointing out various bits that were off, like an illustration from Highlights Magazine that asks you to “circle what’s wrong with this picture.” Someone left a dog poop bag. Jolly Ranchers wrappers clung from the side of a bush. Picked and discarded daisies shriveled on a rock.

My magical little trail wasn’t what I remembered, yet I began to realize that my kid has spontaneously begun his own version of citizen science. And he was having a grand ole time in the moment documenting his findings with pictures.

This type of action and information can make a world of difference to our longterm initiative, Leave No Trace in Every Park, and that is where YOU come in, beloved reader and advocate of everything Leave No Trace. The Leave No Trace Center is relying on you to observe and document Leave No Trace education in action on your trails and in your parks. You are a citizen scientist.

See our new survey to help you record your findings. And remember, the more detail and pictures the better.

Learn more about your important role with Leave No Trace’s Citizen Science project on page #8. This issue of the Resource also shares skills to use when people around you are exhibiting “less than Leave No Trace” behaviors. And as always, be sure to check out the great information in the Tech Tip videos from our resident pros.

Enjoy Your World. Leave No Trace.

Dana Watts Leave No Trace Executive Director

Fantastic Five: October 2016

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Leave No Trace is working in consultation with the National Park Service, the National Parks and Conservation Association, and Subaru of America on a zero landfill initiative at three distinct national park icons: Denali, Grand Teton and Yosemite.

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The Girl Scouts have just released a new video series in consultation with Leave No Trace. The videos are part of a collection of outdoor resources to encourage girls to have positive experiences in the natural world.

Watch them here.

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Your eyes and ears as a citizen scientist are requested as the Center builds a national inventory of Leave No Trace in parks across the country, including yours. Documenting Leave No Trace signs, education programs, messages, and more in your parks and along your trails

and then adding it to the Center’s national register will help the organization identify where to concentrate resources.

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Hot Spots, the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics’ premiere onsite rehabilitation and education program, has just named a slate of 16 sites for next year. The Hot Spot areas range from First State National Historic Park in Delaware to Lower San Marcos River Recreation Area in Texas and Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park. Stay tuned about how to get involved with Hot Spots in your area.

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This summer, 20 camps, including 962 camp staff and 9,000+ campers participated in a pilot of the new Leave No Trace for Every Kid program which will be widely available next year.

Keeping to the trail while hiking reduces erosion in sensitive ecosystems.

Here, Steph Whatton, sticks to the trail while skipping from one rock to the next.

authority of the resource IN 3 EASY STEPS

When enjoying your world, whether while thru-hiking the AT or on a short day trip, have you ever noticed another visitor exhibiting what we could call, “Less than Leave No Trace” behavior? Did you struggle with how to approach that person? What to say? If you even should say anything? Maybe it’s littering, feeding wildlife, carving their name into a tree, or taking a shed antler out of the environment. Whatever the issue, there’s a method called Authority of the Resource (ART), developed by Dr. George N. Wallace, that focuses on how to best approach and educate a person that may be doing something damaging to the resource or others’ experiences.

According to Webster’s Dictionary, “authority” means “the power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior”. Nature can be said to have it’s own authority.

There are real and often immediate consequences to our actions and approaching people on the trail using education (as opposed to rules and citations) connecting their actions to the effects they have on the world around them is a proven method in persuading them to minimize their impact.

Authority of the Resource can be broken down into three steps.

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Make an OBJECTIVE STATEMENT: “I’ve noticed a lot of

people taking that short-cut back there.”

• Give them the benefit of the doubt.

It could have been someone else that caused the impact.

• Avoiding accusatory language will help in diffusing any tension that may have arisen.

• People are more responsive if shown consideration and tact.

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EDUCATE them

by explaining how the resource is negatively effected: “Unfortunately, cutting those switchbacks tramples the vegetative ground cover and causes erosion.”

• Simply stating, “don’t cut switchbacks”, provides no education and is more regulatory in nature.

• Understanding the “why” behind a recommendation is a fundamental component to a visitor considering changing their behavior.

• Take a moment before approaching an individual to think through how you’ll engage and what the real implications are to their actions.

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Tell them HOW YOU FEEL

about the situation and provide an ALTERNATIVE: “I volunteer for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and you would be surprise how much time, money, and effort goes into maintaining these trails so I’d, personally, feel a lot better if folks didn’t cut those

switchbacks. It really doesn’t take much longer to stay on the trail, is less steep, and helps keep the trail, surrounding vegetation, and soil in much better condition. If you do want to hike off-trail, please try to stay on durable surfaces like rock and leaf litter in areas that aren’t as steep.”

• Interjecting a personal perspective can help humanize these situations and break down barriers.

• Providing an alternative communicates that off-trail travel isn’t necessarily “bad”, just that there’s a time and place for it and along a heavily used trail like the Appalachian Trail isn’t one.

Additional Tips:

• Break the ice and get to know the person. They may be new to traveling and camping in the outdoors and do not have experience minimizing their impact.

• Stand side-by-side. Body language says much more than our words and standing face-to-face with someone is very confrontational. Standing sideby-side diffuses that tension.

• Remember that Authority of the Resource cannot always be used and is not always immediately effective. In situations that may be dangerous, law enforcement officials should step in.

This information was obtained from the article Law Enforcement and the “Authority of the Resource” featured in Legacy, Volume 1 (2).

Thanks for reading and remember to be like Bigfoot and Leave No Trace.

Your power as a

citizen scientist Last year, the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics launched its most ambitious initiative in its 22-year history called Leave No Trace in Every Park. Leave No Trace in Every Park’s goal: to ensure that Leave No Trace education and information is available for everyone who spends time outdoors. To achieve it, your active involvement is requested as a CITIZEN SCIENTIST to help determine if Leave No Trace is thriving, or failing, in the outdoors. Are you up for the challenge?

As the Center conceptualized Leave No Trace in Every Park, it determined that the fastest way to achieve mission success was to focus on the source—the lands enjoyed by the public, i.e. parks, forest, and protected areas in the U.S. The initiative needed to take a multitude of forms, from public education initiatives, interpretive materials, staff and volunteer training, onsite education, junior ranger programs to Leave No Trace Hot Spots and much more.

At the foundation, the Center knew it needed to develop a full inventory of U.S.-based public lands currently using Leave No Trace. By 2030, the Center plans for 100% park and protected area participation with Leave No Trace. To start there is a critical need to know what parks and protected areas are already employing Leave No Trace messaging and education, how Leave No Trace is being utilized, and to what extent.

Additionally, the Center must know which parks and protected areas are not currently using Leave No Trace so support can be directed where it is needed most.

To date, the Center has catalogued over 900 public land areas using Leave No Trace. Yet this is just a drop in the bucket. The United States hosts 413 National Park Service units, 7000 state parks, 154 national forests and grasslands, 560 national wildlife refuges, and thousands of municipal and city parks. Given those numbers, there is clearly a long way to go to build a comprehensive national inventory.

collection platform, which will be enhanced and refined over time to ensure robust, accurate data. The Center is asking citizen scientists to observe Leave No Trace signage, area-specific Leave No Trace information, Leave No Tracefocused interpretive displays, Leave No Trace programs, Junior Ranger programs with Leave No Trace elements, etc. on public lands in their area, and then submit an online inventory report. There is an opportunity to upload relevant photos of Leave No Trace in action as well. The online reporting process generally takes less than ten minutes, and all of the information is anonymous.

Enter the Leave No Trace Citizen Scientist!

Though the concept of “citizen science” has formally been around for nearly three decades, it wasn’t explicitly identified as a scientific concept until the mid-1990s, when scientists began to engage the public in the collection of scientific data. In 2014, the term citizen scientists entered the Oxford English Dictionary, and is defined as, “Scientific work undertaken by members of the general public, often in collaboration with or under the direction of professional scientists and scientific institutions.” With a network of over 30,000 members, educators, and volunteers, the Center has a vast legion of potential data collectors, all of whom can play a role in the Leave No Trace in Every Park initiative.

According to Ben Lawhon, the Center’s Education Director, engaging citizen scientists is imperative to realizing success with the In Every Park initiative. “We have so much data that we need to collect about how our shared parks, forests, and protected areas are or aren’t using Leave No Trace. Identifying locations where Leave No Trace is robust and making a difference can provide a blueprint for other areas. Conversely, the inventory will allow us to identify areas of opportunity, which is equally important. Activating our network is the only way we’re going to accomplish this large and critical task in any realistic timeframe.”

To serve as the backbone of the effort, the Center has built a user-friendly online data

As use of public lands increases, so too does the need for comprehensive, accessible, and effective Leave No Trace education and outreach to all outdoor enthusiasts. The Leave No Trace in Every Park initiative provides the path forward for ensuring long term sustainability of our shared parks, forests, and protected areas by empowering all who spend time outside to put Leave No Trace into action. Join the movement – become a Leave No Trace Citizen Scientist today! For more information, visit: https://lnt.org/citizenscience The Leave No Trace Citizen Science project would not be possible without the support from KEEN footwear.

tech tips

Learn these camping tips from the Leave No Trace pros!

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3 videos

In the SPotlight

Community Partners

Organization: Selkirk

Outdoor Leadership & Education (SOLE), Inc.

Partner since: 2011 Proudest accomplishment as an organization: Providing

transformational experiential education programming for over 1,200 youth in North Idaho since 2011!

Why Leave No Trace: Because

it matters. Imagine a world, urban or natural, if we didn’t. Future generations depend on it, and so does our environment.

How do you get from A to B: We travel primarily by foot or via

paddle. We love to canoe, backpack, and simply just hike. Really, whatever

modality will allow us to explore the great outdoors, teach others about the natural wonders which exist, and provide the transformational teachable moments for those we serve.

Perfect day: Wow.

No pressure!

Well, I’d have to say for SOLE the “perfect day” is really ANY day that youth can have the opportunity to reach beyond classroom walls to explore and learn about the natural systems at work while developing some meaningful relationships, and affinity for nature.

can’t go outside without:

At SOLE one thing we can’t go outside without is binos. Magnification binoculars allows us to see from afar providing a healthy distance for us to view and appreciate wildlife in their natural habitat.

Favorite memory outside:

Truly any day that we are unplugged and reconnected outdoors with youth!

From our urban outdoor science programs in urban landscapes in north Idaho to backcountry adventures in the wildlands of Montana, we are truly fortunate to directly experience the “ah-ha” moments and sparks which fuel future passions and a love for all that is wild.

From salami, cheese and crackers to good ‘ole raisins and peanuts or even some hot buttery ‘n cheesy mash potatoes on those chilly days - at SOLE we love all ‘trail food’.

A constant favorite staple that keeps us fueled up when on trail are cinnamon and raisin bagels with crunchy peanut butter and honey.

Best trail snack:

My Leave No Trace partnership…: Is something

that is fully integrated into the fabric of what we do. We love the mission of The Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics, and it lends itself well to SOLE’s [mission] and our programs.

So much that we decided very early on as organization to become a Leave No Trace Partner. We view our partnership as an essential investment in the work that we are doing, and a means to underpin the common goals and interests that we share.

PRO SHOP SALE Teach your happy campers about Leave No Trace with our PEAK and TEEN Packs!

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education in MOTION The Subaru/Leave No Trace Traveling Trainers are conducting the following events across the country in October and November.

Find out more about how you can get involved by checking out the event calendar.

Arizona

Colorado River Discovery, Page, October 12 Lake Powell Half Marathon Vacation Race, Page, October 14 Arizona BLM National Public Lands Day Project, Phoenix, October 22 Arizona BLM National Public Lands Day Project, Maricopa County, October 29 Washington D.C.

The North Face, Georgetown, October 11 National Fossil Day Celebration, National Mall, October 12 GeorgiaFayette County Nature Areas Hot Spot Week, Peachtree City, October 17-24 Indiana

Green Earth Outdoors, New Albany, October 22 Kentucky

Red River Gorge Hot Spot Week, Stankton, October 27-29

Texas

Children’s Vegetable Garden Educational Class, San Antonio, October 11 Elementary School Fall Explorers, San Antonio, October 12 Middle School Fall Explorers, San Antonio, October 13 Ragnar Trail Relays, Comfort, October 20-22 Get Outdoors Heights, Harker Heights, October 27 Halloween Hoopla, Harker Heights, October 31 Virginia

Mt. Rogers Hot Spot Week, Damascus, October 10-17 Virginia 4-H Homeschool Day Camp, Front Royal, October 13 WisconsinRagnar Trail Relays, Wausau, September 22-24