Leave No Trace
Leave No Trace: An environmental ethic from hiking to home
Susy Alkaitis
Executive Summary
For 27 years, Leave No Trace has been the outdoor program and ethic practiced on public lands by people interested in protecting trails, parks, open space and water resources. Recent research (see attachment) documents a Leave No Trace ethic as an influence in environmentally responsible behaviors such as recycling, carpooling, choosing products with minimal packaging – ultimately, a spillover effect from an outdoor ethic to a broader at home environmental ethic.
This behavioral spillover suggests that if people put Leave No Trace into action in parks, they are likely to engage in environmentally responsible behaviors at home and in their communities. And conversely, if people engage in environmentally responsible behaviors at home and in their communities, that environmental engagement will serve as a Leave No Trace “on ramp” in the outdoors. The findings from Leave No Trace’s recent research with Pennsylvania State University indicates a powerful “two-way street” where outdoor and conservation ethics could flow seamlessly, back and forth, from daily life to parks and protected areas.
The work that the organization and its partners do to teach and promote Leave No Trace in the outdoors now has a greater purpose when connecting it to environmentally sustainable behaviors at home. It is a more profound outcome because we are not only positively affecting behavior in the outdoors but also in people’s daily life – truly minimizing impact to the planet.