Leave No Trace

[Gutterbird]

What seems to work for teaching Leave no Trace? Some of our boys just don't get it yet. Boys will be boys, and boys love to climb tree's and break branches in the process, it is human nature for a young lad. Other things I am seeing is walking off pathways and tearing up the land. Whatever we say or do goes in one ear and out the other. I know our troop is not the only one that has this issue, I have been at camporees where boys from other troops just destroy the area around them. I can also say that I have seen troops with boys that learned to respect nature and take care of it.

 

So, how do you teach Leave no Trace?

 

[CA_Scouter]

There are 'Teaching Leave No Trace' materials all over the internet, and I think scouting.org likely has some reference material available as well.

 

We contacted the local chapter of the national LNT organization and they were more than happy to come on-site and give us a detailed hands-on demo of their recommended techniques and practices. It was very interesting and the scouts were fully engaged in the presentation. They do a great job of tuning the presentation to the age of the audience.

 

You should also adjust your expectations to the skill and/or attention level of your audience. Most of my scouts were introduced to LNT when they were a bit more 'seasoned', sounds like your charges may be young-uns. Adjust your program to incorporate portions of LNT into every campout. Do small parts or only one of the seven points at a time, don't try to do it all at once.

 

For example 'Plan ahead and prepare' - how involved are your scouts in planning the outings or preparing their equipment for the outing? Is this handled by adults or by your scouts ( SPL/ QM ) ? If you start to engage your scouts in the process, they will be more likely to take ownership and make it work.

 

We also made it a point to have older scouts participate in skillbase presentations of LNT, because they were working on the BSA LNT patch/award.

 

This process takes a long time. You're altering a mindset so it takes time to make it happen. The scouts who received the LNT award took close to a year and a half to make it all happen.

 

Our troop emphasizes backpacking skills, meaning that we bring a minimum of equipment on our outings, regardless if its a true backpacking trip or a car camping trip. It would be challenging to set the example of Leave No Trace if your troop brings a large trailer or several pickup trucks full of equipment on every campout ( as our troop used to do ).

 

 

 

 

 

[Knot Head]

We repeat the Leave No Trace Principle at each meeting and each morning at the flag ceremony on a campout. The adults try to look for ways in the field to encourage the use of the principle in the field. The older guys are starting to do this now too.

 

Each day we line up and "walk the campsite" and pick up trash.

 

When we hike/backpack/camp we award "points" to the scout IF they collect more litter off the trail/campsite than the adults. The boys & adults carry a big 2 gallon ziplock bag and collect trash on the trail. At the end of the day we hold this up and show them all the trash the boys missed along the way. Usually the scouts win this competition - which is how it should be. We'll do the same thing at a campsite. They walk the campsite and then we do. If they get more trash than us they get "points" they can redeem for camping trinkets (flashlights, headlamps, compass, caps, etc.). It's like a "game with a purpose" I guess.

 

It takes awhile but as the older guys start to get it they train the younger guys and it becomes troop culture to LNT.

 

Our goal on a capout is to "leave a trace" which for us means try to leave it better than you found it.

 

I kow we could do better but this is one way we try to teach LNT.(This message has been edited by knot head)

[shortridge]

I absolutely agree with CAScouter - the biggest and most important cultural shift you can make to get your Scouts into an LNT mindset is to think light. Move to backpacking and away from car camping/trailers/trucks. It's not an easy thing to do, especially with younger Scouts, but it will pay off in more ways than one.

[Eamonn]

A few years back I took the LNT Instructor course.

A great course and well worth doing.

I took the course In Virginia.

I think that all around Virginia we have a lot of Troops, Districts and Councils. So I was a little surprised to find I was the only active Scouter on the course.

My hope is that one year when I have less on my plate, I'll go back and take the Master Course.

It's easy for a couple of guys who decide to go off on a hike to not leave much of a trace.

It's a lot harder when a Patrol of Scouts go off on a hike and not possible when the numbers get real big.

When we look at "'Plan ahead and prepare" We need to think about what we are going to do.

Car Camping does have a place in Scouting. In fact I believe it's the best way of introducing the kids we serve to the skills they need.

The Council owned camp site which is by design a place for Scouts to learn how to camp, light fires, build pioneering projects, learn how to use a map and a compass. Is not something which I'd ever put down.

Back when I was a SM of a very large Troop, I just didn't have the time to be able to spend with very small groups taking hikes in the back country. I made the time to teach them what they ought to do when they went as a small patrol. (About six Scouts.)

 

We have one older Scouter who is a regular on ESBOR. He make a point at every ESBOR to ask each Scout if he knows The Outdoor Code?

Very few do.

The Outdoor Code is a great place to start when teaching Scouts how to behave in the outdoors.

The participants on the course I took had a very low opinion of how scouts act in the outdoors. We have a very bad reputation which needs to be fixed.

Eamonn.

 

[walk in the woods]

Yeah, if you're car camping use the front-country guidelines. They are basically the same principles but easier to grasp for younger scouts. Just as you might use car camping to teach camping skills, use front-country guidelines to teach LNT skills. When you're ready for more primative camping then you can introduce the more rigorous skill sets.

 

 

[Scoutfish]

If I understand you right..you already know all the leave no trace stuff...you just can't get it through the scouts thick skulls!

 

Okay, similar type of situation, but completely different event.

 

I tried the video game approach: I asked the kids if they ever played a game where their guy has to get shot multiple times. Instead of dying on the first shot, thie guy loses strenght. The more strenght the guy loses, the worse he fights until ultimately, he dies. GAME OVER!

 

So change it to your specific details:

 

 

So every time you walk off the path and break a tree, bush, cave in a part of a creek embankment , etc, the environment loses some strength. Now the environment isn't as strong as it was and has a harder time coping.

 

Keep doing things to weaken the evironment, and the environment, the animals and us lose! Except we can't restart the game!

 

You'd be amazed at all the wide eyes and "We didn't know!" looks I get. Then you watch the (Cub) Scouts act extra carefull!(This message has been edited by scoutfish)

[DeanRx]

I think you need to take a balanced approach to the LNT training.

 

Yes - we should stay on trails. But its different to hop on rocks than it is to bust brush trough a field and trample the grass. You are not going to do any lasting damage to the rocks, the meadow will take longer to recover.

 

Pick your battles - I had a dad at a campout scold a scout (in front of others) for smacking a tree trunk with a stick because it "might tear off the bark and hurt the tree". Well yes it might, but the stick the kid was using was already on the ground, he didn't break it off a live tree. The tree he was hitting was a very large oak with an almost 3ft diameter trunk. I bet the lad could have hit that thing for a week and never caused any damage. He wasn't carving his name into it. That tree was over 100 years old and it'll be there long after we all die (unless someone with a saw gets to it).

 

LNT is a very good thing. But, one must temper it with allowing kids to engage nature so that they learn to respect it. I've read a little about John Muir and his youth. As a kid he was allowed (if not encouraged) to shoot at seaguls with his sling-shot when on the beach near his home!! He was interacting with nature and this led him to respect it. Kids need some tactile interaction, or the reverence and respect is hard to come by. Its hard to have deep felings for the things you keep locked up behind glass and out of reach with a "do not touch" sign on them.

 

LNT is meant to minimize impact, not to sterilize the expirience to the point that the backcountry becomes the same as looking at artifacts in a museum.

 

When possible and appropriate, kids should touch the trees and bushes and splash in the water. If you happen to step on a creek bank and it caves in a little, you are really just hastening the natural errosion that was taking place. You should not go along the whole bank, kicking it into the riverbed. But, I would not loose much sleep over a true 'accident'.

 

Temperance and prudence with LNT is a good thing. If your tent mats down the grass, it'll come back. Just don't dig the drainage trench.

 

One thing we do as a unit is a final police call of the camp once everything is packed up. No one leaves until the police call is finished. Scouts are amazed at how much garbage they find when you sweep the campgrounds. Usually,we're just 5 ft underway and the adult get asked "Do we have to pick up the stuff that was here when we got here?" - YUP, that's someone else's candywrapper, but you get the credit for picking it up.

 

One item I don't bend on in LNT - leave it better than you found it. This makes up for the smashed grass and a few snapped branches that might have occured during the stay.

[ozemu]

Play stalking wide games that involve looking for traces of the quarry. Soldiers leave no trace - otherwise the bad guys might follow the signs and shoot at them.

 

Try camping overnight and then going to find the vacated camp of other Patrols.

 

Indigenous peoples across the globe tred lightly. Not just with hunting and stalking but it carries over to respect for the other organisms. If Indians are cool then explore their outlook.

 

Perhaps your Scouts could observe and follow ants, track how long before saliva becomes a moisture source, work on the micro and when that is interesting the macro might be looked at differently.

 

Take time to appreciate the spectacular in the natural environment. Start with big things but work toward small and less obvious things until they start looking too. If you lead they may follow.

 

Refuse to take them places if they are not respectful of the environment. There are places that I will not take some people or go to at all. Being denied may bring on a desire to know why not. But truthfully the environment deserves respect and if Scouts are not trustworthy the environment should not have them inflicted upon it. In my mind we do not have a right to go anywhere we want - only where we are welcome. So if they don't buy into LNT then leave them out of places where they can be destructive.