Geocaching

By now, I'm sure you've heard of geocaching. According to http://www.geocaching.com/, geocaching "is an entertaining adventure game for gps (global positioning system) users.



The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache.

Over the past several years, geocaching has grown by leaps and bounds. Started in 2000, there are now more than 540,700 active caches worldwide. To put the growth in perspective, there were 340,000 active caches by December 2006. In less than two years, the total number of caches worldwide has almost doubled.

Geocaching presents an interesting set of issues with respect to Leave No Trace. First, there is the fact that many, many people are getting out and enjoying the out-of-doors. Second, many of them are the new generation of tech-savvy youngsters who otherwise might choose the Wii over a hike outside. Third, there is the cumulative impact of all these cache hunters on the landscape. With such a large number of caches, there is the potential for significant impact to the land. Trampling impacts, wildlife impacts, human waste impacts, trash, litter, off-trail travel, etc. are all part of the equation.

However, if those participating in geocaching can strive to minimize their impact, either those seeking or placing caches, then every geocacher can enjoy the outdoors in a responsible way. 

Things to consider:

• Properly planning for your geocaching outing by having the items or equipment you'll need to safely enjoy your adventure. Also, if placing a cache, making sure it's legal in your area. 
• Being conscience of where caches are placed (durable surfaces) and thinking about how traveling to and from a cache can cause trampling, erosion, etc. 
• Having the necessary knowledge/equipment to deal with trash, litter and human waste. 
• Considering impacts of geocaching to both plants and animals. 
• Being mindful of other visitors who may also be enjoying the same areas as you. 

As always, get out, enjoy the outdoors responsibly and Leave No Trace...

The Air Out There...

class·room /ˈklæsˌrum, -ˌrʊm,/
–noun
1. a room, as in a school or college, in which classes are held.
2. any place where one learns or gains experience.

at·mos·phere /ˈætməsˌfɪər/
–noun
  [...]

6. a surrounding or pervading mood, environment, or influence: an atmosphere of impending war; a very tense atmosphere.

7. the dominant mood or emotional tone of a work of art, as of a play or novel: the chilly atmosphere of a ghost story.
8. a distinctive quality, as of a place; character: The old part of town has lots of atmosphere.
–verb (used with object)

***

"Classroom" and "Atmosphere" - both essential elements to learning.  Master them individually, and you have a perfectly suitable environment.  Combine them to "Classroom Atmosphere," however, and you have the ultimate learning experience.  

Below are a few of my favorite classroom pictures from a Master Educator Course that I recently completed with several colleagues in Western Colorado.

Leave No Trace in Ireland

When I last blogged, I discussed the Leave No Trace international initiatives including three branches in Australia, Canada and Ireland. Beverely Pierson, who coordinates efforts in Ireland, recently sent an update about the progress that organization has made a very short period of time. Pierson, along with a Board of Directors and very broad selection of partners has not only facilitated educational efforts but they have spent much energy dealing with the fundamental issues of setting up and raising funds for a new organization. Below is Beverley’s contact information as well as her update.

***********************************************************

Leave No Trace Ireland:
http://leavenotraceireland.org
Beverley Pierson, Coordinator
beverley@leavenotraceireland.org
0044 28 9030 3938

Leave No Trace in Ireland

The Leave No Trace concept is now been officially active in Ireland for 7 months, although much work has been done on the project prior to this.

During the past 12 months, Leave No Trace Ireland’s work has focused mainly on:
• Setting up of the legal entity – Leave No Trace Ireland Ltd
• Agreeing with Leave No Trace America the contractual arrangements to permit Leave No Trace Ireland to operate
• Putting in place the necessary administrative systems to allow Leave No Trace Ireland to operate effectively
• Agreeing the funding arrangements with Leave No Trace Ireland’s core funding bodies
• Establishing a training calendar and delivering a number of Master Educator and Awareness Sessions across Ireland
• Marketing the Leave No Trace message across Ireland through attendance at events, seminars and the web site.
• Creating a strong recognizable brand for Leave No Trace Ireland which will become effective in all educational, web site and publicity material associated with Leave No Trace Ireland http://www.leavenotraceireland.org
• Producing Leave No Trace Ireland’s first newsletter
• Redesigning the website – www.leavenotraceireland.org
• Redesigning the information booklet
• Creating a new partnership and membership structure for Leave No Trace Ireland
• Agreeing Master Educator and Trainer fees for conducting either training courses and awareness sessions
• Producing Trainer Packs for people who have participated in training courses - Certificates and pins

The growth of Leave No Trace in Ireland is becoming evident from the increase of uptake in training and the amount of organisations that support the programme. At present the programme in Ireland is financially supported by 19 different organisations.

With regards to training:
• We have 13 master educators within Ireland who can deliver Trainer Courses, with another instructor course planned for June 2008
• 13 Trainer Courses have been delivered to date
• 5 Trainer Courses planned for 2008
• 108 people are now qualified as Leave No Trace Trainers
• 43 Awareness Sessions have been delivered to date

A participant on a Trainer Course commented “The Leave No Trace training weekend I recently attended at the Share Holiday Village, Co.Fermanagh was a very informative and enjoyable experience. The course’s two instructors, Katy Egan and Richard Lappin provided us with a relaxed, ‘learning-friendly’ environment and did much to ensure the experience was both ‘good craic’ and informative. I came away from the weekend having gained a much better appreciation of the principles of Leave No Trace and now look forward to applying the principles in both my work and my day to day life” (Peter Hughes, Xtreme North West).

Anyone who has a keen eye, will see the Leave No Trace message appearing in all sorts of places from trail head signs to brochures and web sites. The spread of the message has been considerable and hopefully, as people begin to see it as a unified message it will begin to percolate the subconscious and effect a real change.

BUT… there is still much more work to be done and immediate priorities are to organise the Leave No Trace Instructor Course for June 2008, redesign and reword the educational material for Training and producing the Spring edition of the newsletter.

Now we will need to encourage new organisations to join the Leave No Trace Ireland Network and support the initiative financially and also in rolling out the message through their daily work.

For more information on Leave No Trace Ireland, please visit our website www.leavenotraceireland.org.

Frisbee and Beanie Sale!

It's almost Spring, and around here that means planning for upcoming outings and trips. Two of our favorites items to never leave home without are a good frisbee and a warm hat.

The 175 gram Leave No Trace Frisbee is made of post-consumer recycled material and fly's great.

Our Smartwool Beanie is the lightest weight insurance you can bring, whether spring camping or cold summer nights in the desert.

Both are now 30% off through the end of March in our online store!

The Backpackers' Cache

One of the newest items available to buy from our store is the Backpackers' Cache, a bear resistant container. It has been tested by the experts (bears) and proven to be effective in not only reducing odor transmission of the food stored inside, but also in keeping even the hungriest of bears out of your food supply. You can find this item for sale on our website www.lnt.org under the store tab. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to call or email the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics! 

Newbies!

Today is kind of like Christmas at Leave No Trace, or a holiday in the very least.

At noon (drum roll please!), we will officially welcome the latest additions to the Leave No Trace environmental education community: two brand new Subaru/Leave No Trace Traveling Trainer teams! For Cody, Tanya, Alexis and Topher, today begins a new chapter in not only their individual lives, but in the organization and program as a whole.

After two weeks of training (and bonding) at The Center in Boulder, including a one-week field-course in Western Colorado, these fearless educators will hit the road, joining the existing Senior Team, JD & Emily. Their travels will take them all across the country through November of this year, bringing Leave No Trace education and trainings to thousands of individuals.

Stay tuned for our upcoming issue of Learn.Network.Together., which comes out Friday, to learn more about these teams. Finally, don’t forget to follow them as they make their way across the states this year: you can always check up on the teams' blog and the team calendars.

International Partners Page is Live!

Check out our new International Partner Page, where you can see what organizations around the world are doing with Leave No Trace. Every year, international Leave No Trace efforts expand and grow as we add more and more international partners.

For example, I had a great conversation today with the folks at Rainforest Aerial Trams about their new partnership with the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics. Rainforest Aerial Trams is a really cool organization that operates in Costa Rica, St. Lucia and Dominica, offering folks a unique way to get outside and enjoy the outdoors. Serving as wildlife reserves, ecotourism attractions and research parks, their parks provide an incredible aerial tour of some of the world's most incredible forests.

Visit our International Partner Page to learn more about RFAT and other unique organizations doing their part to play outside responsibly!

Plan Ahead and Prepare....NOT!

*Picture from a recent trip to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee

Last Sunday was one of those beautiful, warm, sunny, late winter days that makes you long for spring. Having been on the road for the past week at a meeting in California, I wanted to get out, stretch the legs and go for a hike with my son. I was thinking about a favorite hike, Gregory Canyon, because it's relatively long (about 4.5 miles) and traverses some beautiful country. I had also settled on this particular hike because it's in the trees and I knew it would provide shade for my son since he was going to be riding in a kid carrier. My son, my dog and I hit the trail and within a few hundred yards, I quickly realized that I was sorely unprepared (and I'm an Eagle Scout!). I had on the wrong shoes and was in a slippery situation, literally. Recent snow in Boulder had blanketed the trails and the tree cover had kept the trail icy and snowpacked. I didn't have on shoes that could grip the trail and I began to worry that we wouldn't be able to safely make it down the trail. I made the decision to keep going up and make a loop out of it, banking on the south facing part of the trail being thawed. Boy, was I wrong. It' took a full 2 hours to complete just a short 2 mile loop (I decided not to do the entire trail). "Never again" I said. On our way home I stopped by the local hardware store and bought an arsenal of hex head sheet metal screws to turn my hiking shoes into studded hiking shoes. This is something that I had been thinking/talking about doing for, oh, about 7 years. However, it took putting myself and my son in a precarious situation before actually really preparing myself. It all goes back to the importance of being prepared for what you're either likely to or will encounter on an outdoor adventure. Learning lessons the hard way is effective but in the future I'll be ready for anything!


* My "new" snow/ice hiking shoes.

International Leave No Trace

**Photo: The Leave No Trace principle, "Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces" is taught on a Japanese Trainer Course hosted by partner, Discovery U.

Have you ever wondered how Leave No Trace applies on Mount Kilimanjaro, on the Galapagos Islands, in the Brazilian rain forests, Japan or the Middle East? The Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics has received inquiries from over 60 countries in recent years for education, training or the tools to provide Leave No Trace programs in their countries. Requests have ranged from developing Leave No Trace organizations in New Zealand, Israel and India to programmatic work in places such as the Ukraine, Philippines, China, Tanzania and Bolivia. To that end, we provide educational tools and offers partnerships to these international groups. Additionally, basic Leave No Trace information has been translated into over a dozen languages, and organizations are using the program all over the world.

As a component of the Center’s international response, we have assisted in the development of three international branch organizations: Leave No Trace Australia, Leave No Trace/Sans trace Canada and Leave No Trace Ireland. These branches of the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics function as independent, nonprofit organizations with their own governance, funding sources and strategic priorities though they share in the mission of Leave No Trace.

If you are interested in learning more about the three Leave No Trace branch organizations, their contact information is below:

Leave No Trace Australia:
www.lnt.org.au
Cameron Crowe, Executive Director
cameron@lnt.org.au
08 9384 9062

Leave No Trace Canada / Sans trace Canada:
www.leavenotrace.ca
Dean Cattell, Board Chair
info@leavenotrace.ca or catfam@sasktel.net
877-238-9343

Leave No Trace Ireland:
http://leavenotraceireland.org
Beverley Pierson, Coordinator
beverley@leavenotraceireland.org
0044 28 9030 3938

How Green is your Candidate?

The upcoming election has the potential to be an exciting time for our country.  There are always many issues to consider when choosing your candidate.  I have been looking up websites online which evaluate the environmental positions of the 2008 presidential candidates, a topic that is very important to me.  I found these two websites helpful when looking at what the candidates plans are to benefit the environment throughout their term in office Election Center 2008 and How Green Is Your Candidate?  Hopefully you will find these to be interesting and informative sites.

Spring Training…

As much as we love winter and the powdery white stuff that goes along with it, our thoughts are beginning to turn toward longer days and warmer weather. While tuning up your bike and dusting off your trail running shoes are two great ways to prepare for the upcoming season, brushing up on your Leave No Trace skills might also be in order. No matter what your favorite warm-weather, outdoor-pursuit may be, learning some skills to help you reduce your impact on the land will really enrich your experience.

So, if you’re interested in learning more about Leave No Trace check out our website. There you can find information on participating in an Awareness Workshop, a Trainer Course, or a Master Educator Course. Also, check out the Community tab or the Traveling Trainer Event Calendar to find out about Leave No Trace training opportunities in your area.

-JD Tanner and Emily Ressler, Senior Subaru/Leave No Trace Traveling Trainer Team, are back for year two on the road. To read more about their adventures check out the Subaru/Leave No Trace Traveling Trainer Blog.

“A Tale of Two Cities…”

…is a good book—I hear—and was also the title of the weather report Sunday night in Denver. On the screen were two photos of a city park. One of them pictured a sunny day filled with runners, walkers and Frisbee players in shorts/t-shirts; the other pictured an empty field with six inches of whirling, twirling snow.

These photos were taken less than 24 hrs apart. Ah, the life of a Coloradoan. The phrase “in like a lion, out like a lamb” doesn’t really apply here. March is a historically fickle month (in terms of weather) in our state and, thus, outdoor activities run the gamut—winter sports enthusiasts squeeze in their last few weekend trips to the mountains, sports season begins again, schools are out on field trips and people suffering from “cabin fever” have an opportunity to get outdoors and receive a little taste of spring. I’d don’t know for sure, but I’d guess its one of the months that produces one of the more diverse groups of outdoor recreators.

So, while deciding whether to go to work in snow boots or sandals, enjoy the variety and unpredictability of March! Plan and prepare for your outdoor adventures, even if it is hard to tell what Mother Nature is going to send our way.

A Few Key Goals for 2008

The Leave No Trace staff has been busy discussing and updating the Leave No Trace strategic and operational plan for 2008. We have a robust agenda and I’d like to share some of it with you, our dedicated blog readers. Our 2008 goals work in cooperation with all of our critical training and educational programs such as Traveling Trainers, PEAK, State Advocates, curriculum development, Leave No Trace courses and more. I won’t go through all the nitty gritty but rather, provide some of our top priorities that assist in our delivery of quality Leave No Trace programs this year.


RESEARCH & REPORTING
Goal Statement: Facilitate, conduct and/or coordinate research in the forms of surveys, case studies and longer-term empirical studies that:
• Determine the program’s effectiveness in positively changing visitor opinions and human behavior in the outdoors, in reducing visitor impacts and/or user group conflicts, and ultimately in minimizing human impacts on natural lands.
• Build on our current research foundation with new, updated, relevant information that ensures the effectiveness of programs and materials.
• Enables us to broaden our reach into new communities and demographics with dynamic, effective, cutting-edge trainings and program.

ENVIRONMENT
Goal Statement: As professionals in the environmental education field, we strive to be accountable for actions that impact our environment, and seek to be champions for sustainable and environmental initiatives. The Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics recognizes the need to endeavor for environmental sustainability and conservation of natural resources. We acknowledge the need for ethical and sustainable practices that transcend our organizational mission, which become inherent parts of the way we manage our organization and our daily lives.

COMMUNITY
Goal Statement: Connect people in their home states - active volunteers, State Advocates, educators, Leave No Trace partners, individual members and other interested outdoor users. Link all of these important groups and enable them to more easily share Leave No Trace information, ideas and experiences. Provide more localized outreach and training opportunities and empower and support local communities to lead their own Leave No Trace activities. Better understand our audience’s changing needs, create more meaningful trainings and outreach, and involve new people, especially kids and broader ethnic groups, in Leave No Trace programs.

It’s already March and we’re working hard to put our operational plan into action on many significant levels. We plan to report some concrete, tangible results by years’ end. Stay tuned…

Sustainability

This past week, I had the opportunity to attend a two day conference on Sustainability. Many great ideas were presented by many great minds. Truly inspiring to see what is being done by individuals, scientists, and corporations. Breakout sessions included topics such as Reducing your Company's Carbon Footprint, Sustainability and Tourism, Corporate leadership with Sustainable practices, the Future of the Car, and Greening the Built Environment.

Obviously at its core, Leave No Trace is all about Sustainable Recreation; ensuring that our activities today do not adversely impact those tomorrow. It was great to play with some of the ideas presented in the context of Leave No Trace.

One challenge I believe faced by us all, is balancing the need to minimize our impacts while still introducing others to the outdoors. Whether taking your kids or friends outdoors for the first time, we want to minimize those impacts. But if your kids or friends are told not to touch anything, stay on the trail, etc., will they truly build an appreciation for the outdoors?  If we fail to engage them, will they be there to protect the outdoors when needed. But do we knowingly trade off impacts today for appreciation and engagement down the road?