Sin dejar huellas

Leave No Trace is a well-known non-profit organization in the United States popular with outdoors enthusiasts that teaches people how to "enjoy the outdoors responsibly," and believes that the "empowerment of people to develop a sense of communal ownership of the outdoors generates a more sustainable, more environmentally educated global community."

"Sin dejar huellas," the Spanish term for Leave No Trace, is a great program to introduce in our sites. It might be most helpful for those of us who live near national parks, reserves, or other more or less natural areas because the principles are generally applicable to backcountry or frontcountry use. However, principles like "Dispose of waster properly" can and should followed, of course, in any place wild or not. The idea of LNT is to apply one's respect for nature to all aspects of life - whether you live in the city, the country, the beach, the mountains, wherever. These are the principles:

1. Plan ahead and prepare
2. Travel and camp on durable surfaces
3. Dispose of waster properly
4. Leave what you find
5. Minimize campire impacts
6. Respect wildlife
7. Be considerate of other visitors

And each principle has a number of guidelines that you can read here: http://www.lnt.org/programs/principles.php

Also, LNT's Powerpoint document that introduces the program is available in Spanish to download here: http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/47661/SinDejarHuellas2008

A much smaller version of LNT website in Spanish is located here: www.lnt.org/programs/en_espanol.php

They have only one video in Spanish about PEAK, a program that promotes responsible recreation and environmental respect in kids. You can find more about PEAK and the situation cards on the LNT website. This is the less-than-engaging video:

De acuerdo o de ninguna manera

Another resource I want to throw out there is a mostly wordless video by LNT that focuses dramatically on three situations. It's a little crazy and in many cases not relevant but it might be fun for kids to watch. Plus the lesson that all three scenarios teaches is to rise above pride and clean up less considerate peoples' messes for the benefit of everyone (because who else is going to do it?).

Leave No Trace Extreme Stewardship

I'm lucky enough to live at one of the entrances to a very large and diverse park in Ecuador with some very nice hot springs just a three-day round trip hike away and an erupting volcano only two days' walk from where I sit in the other direction. Every so often the school director takes a group of kids into the park to these hot springs, called El Placer. My idea is to incorporate Leave No Trace activities into this trip with help from the concepts section of the LNT website (LINK). The park requires that the kids are at least 12 years old so the activities will have to be designed around that. As it's a three-day trip, I have this sort of rough schedule thought out so far:

Day 1: Before leaving, introduce the concept of LNT with a dinamica. Discuss what it is, why it's important, and what they can do during their visit to practice LNT.

On the way out, I'd like the group to stop by the park office for a talk with the guards (the "Plan ahead and prepare" LNT principle). Themes they can briefly cover are: park rules and regulations (and why they exist) and what natural things they should look out for. At this point I'm planning on giving out small activity booklets (each a plastic zip bag because it rains perpetually here) that ask the kids to draw out things they see - animals, plants, birds, insects, vistas, the hot springs, anything. Maybe if this project happens and I get the booklets done, I'll post an update and share the booklets!

So during a lunch break we could discuss more LNT and do another dinamica - at this point I think it would be good to discuss trash disposal because they'll all probably have food-related garbage.

At night we'll either be camping or staying in cabanas, so here would be a good time to discuss how to minimize campfire impacts, where to camp, and where to put smelly objects like food so animals can't get it.

Day 2: In the morning we'd discuss breaking down camp properly. At some point, we'll arrive at the hot springs. It's not exactly LNT, but we could talk about how hot springs form and why there are hot springs here.

Day 3: During breaks, we could discuss what we've seen and share our activity booklets. And my plan is to present all the participants with a 'sin dejar huellas' certificate of completion, based on the LNT certificate you can find online and edit to Spanish.

Who knows if this will happen or even if it will evolve into something greater. There are tons of possibilities of working with Leave No Trace. Maybe holding shorter trips into the park focusing on one principle at a time, seven principles in total - it could even develop into something like a boyscout merit program.

Good luck! If any of you incorporate Sin dejar huellas in your work, please let me know what you´ve done!