For decades, the Leave No Trace (LNT) ethic has guided outdoor backpackers (and others) in minimizing their physical impact on wild places. These principles — focused on waste, wildlife, and landscape preservation — remain essential. However, modern technology has introduced a new and often overlooked form of impact: the digital footprint. Smartphones, GPS devices, drones, social media platforms, and geotagging have transformed how people experience and share wilderness. While these tools might offer some safety, navigation, and education benefits, they also create lasting digital traces that can harm fragile environments and diminish the wilderness experience for others.
This proposal introduces Leave No Digital Trace (LNDT), a complementary wilderness ethic designed to address the unintended consequences of digital technology in natural spaces. LNDT encourages outdoor users to minimize their digital impact in the same way LNT minimizes physical impact.
Continue reading Proposal for a New Wilderness Ethic: Leave No Digital Trace (LNDT)
These attackers may seem to be unrelated to each other, but they have one thing in common — all these groups directly or indirectly see wilderness as an economic opportunity. Additionally groups of people such as the trail guide writers, the whitewater raft companies, and wilderness guides are benefitting financially from the wilderness and increasing man’s impact by bringing an increasing number of people into our wild areas. Oh, they say they do it to introduce more people to wilderness, but lets face it; they do it for the money. More people are not good for wilderness. Especially more people who would not have ventured forward without those who provide information and/or access.
