Leave No Trace Seminar by Mister LNT

July 3, 2013 July 3, 2013 Mc Pol leave no trace, nature, seminar

Last Saturday I got a chance to attend a seminar spearheaded by Mister LNT. It was so fun to be there, listening to those kinds of talk where you acquire a knowledge about your passion at the same time help protecting our Mother Nature.

Mister LNT is an advocacy by Mister Lito for responsible mountaineering and to practice Leave No Trace in the Philippines. We all know that there’s already LNT.org, but Mister LNT aims to disseminate the information of LNT.org in the Philippines. He wants us to practice Leave No Trace attitude not only in mountains, but in every outdoor environment even in our office.

There’s this seven principles of outdoor ethics in LNT (as seen at the photo). They have a Mnemonic version of that list.

Clever mnemonic! LBM PD CR!

Here’s what I understand on each principles:

1. Leave what you find – From the LNT phrase which is “Take nothing but pictures”, it talks about this principle. We shouldn’t take anything from the mountain or anywhere. First thing, we don’t own them, second is we might accidentally distract the balance in that particular place. If you want to take something to make that moment memorable, just take a picture of the thing you want to take home and make a peace sign then upload it on FB. Instant celebrity!

2. Be considerate of other visitor – Y’all want to follow this one! We’re all visitors on that place, so please have a heart or a face to just respect it and not own it! Don’t write anything on the stone, chisel some writings on the tree and don’t you try to put a mark that you’ve been there. One thing is that WE DON’T CARE! Please stop doing that, we want to witness a pristine place, I guess we all want that! Stop vandalizing or anything that will destroy that true form of the place.

3. Minimize campfire – A lot of mountains are getting burned, one reason is camp fires. I know a lot of guides do this. Don’t let them do it. Buy a burner, butane lamp, and if your main reason of putting up camp fire is that you’re in cold. Bring a jacket, bonnet and gloves, and if that didn’t work?! Ask your friend to have a body heat transfer. (Chansing teknik 101)

4. Plan ahead and prepare – First is to research, do some blog reading or any article about the place you’ll visit. Then write a list of thing you need to bring. Then you train yourself to be physically ready for the activity. You also have to consider the culture, weather and the state of the place you’ll visit.

5. Dispose of waste properly – “Leave nothing but footprints” especially your wastes. It has been a norm to all mountaineers that what they bring up in the mountain is what they’ll bring down. You should also dispose your waste, I mean your human waste properly by digging a cat hole. You know what I mean. Yeah?

6. Travel and Camp on durable surface – This means you have to go on a path were it is safe, stable and established to avoid any danger. Walk on the trail where there’s an obvious path, if you’re exploring try not to walk on a one path to avoid destroying the vegetation on that area.

7. Respect Wildlife – Lastly, let us all respect wildlife. It’s their habitat we’re just a visitor there so we have to be the one to adapt to its nature and environment not the other way around. We shouldn’t do something that will destroy their home. “Kill nothing but time”. One shouldn’t kill any living creature anywhere, may it be on jungle, wild or even on the streets because they also have rights to live.

PS: When worse comes to worst disregard those principle to save your life.

I’ve learned a lot of things on that seminar. We should all practice climbing with Leave No Trace principles because those were made for us.Thank you Mister LNT for conducting that seminar.