Editing Leave No Trace (section)

==Criticism==
[[File:Trash in forest.jpg|thumb|Litter in a forest in Romania. As well as spoiling the view, discarded waste can cause damage to plants and animals in the environment.]]
While Leave No Trace is a widely accepted [[Conservation movement|conservationist]] ethic, there has been some criticism. In 2002, environmental historian James Morton Turner argued that Leave No Trace focused "largely on protecting wilderness" rather than tackling questions such as the "economy, [[consumerism]], and the environment", and that it "helped ally the modern backpacker with the wilderness recreation industry" by encouraging backpackers to purchase products advertising Leave No Trace, or asking people to bring a petroleum stove instead of building a natural campfire.<ref name="JSTOR1">{{cite journal |last1=Turner |first1=James Morton |date=July 2002 |title=From Woodcraft to 'Leave No Trace': Wilderness, Consumerism, and Environmentalism in Twentieth-Century America |journal=Environmental History |volume=7 |issue=3 |pages=462–484 |doi=10.2307/3985918 |jstor=3985918|bibcode=2002EnvH....7..462M |s2cid=133079776 }}</ref>

In 2009, Gregory Simon and Peter Alagona argued that there should be a move beyond Leave No Trace, and that the ethic "disguises much about human relationships with non-human nature" by making it seem that parks and wilderness areas are "pristine nature" which "erases their human histories, and prevents people from understanding how these landscapes have developed over time through complex human–environment interactions". They posit that there should be a new [[environmental ethic]] "that transforms the critical scholarship of social science into a critical practice of wilderness recreation, addresses the global economic system...and reinvents wilderness recreation as a more collaborative, participatory, productive, democratic, and radical form of political action". They also write about how "the LNT logo becomes both a corporate brand and an official stamp of approval" in outdoor recreation stores like [[REI]].<ref name="BeyondLNT">{{cite web |title=Beyond Leave No Trace |url=http://www.gregory-simon.com/GLS/Research_and_Publications_files/Beyond_Leave_No_Trace.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141101004332/http://www.gregory-simon.com/GLS/Research_and_Publications_files/Beyond_Leave_No_Trace.pdf |archive-date=2014-11-01 |access-date=2014-10-31 |publisher=Ethics, Place and Environment}}</ref>

The authors articulate their new environmental ethic as expanding LNT, not rejecting it all together, and share the seven principles of what they call 'Beyond Leave No Trace':<ref name="BeyondLNT" />
# Educate yourself and others about the places you visit
# Purchase only the equipment and clothing you need
# Take care of the equipment and clothing you have
# Make conscientious food, equipment, and clothing consumption choices
# Minimize waste production
# Reduce [[energy consumption]]
# Get involved by conserving and restoring the places you visit

In 2012, in response to critiques of their 2009 article, Simon and Alagona wrote that they "remain steadfast in our endorsement of LNT’s value and potential" but that they believe that "this simple ethic is not enough in a world of global capital circulation." They write that Leave No Trace "could not exist in its current form without a plethora of consumer products;" that "the use of such products does not erase environmental impacts;" and that LNT "systematically obscures these impacts, displacements, and connections by encouraging the false belief that it is possible to 'leave no trace'".<ref name="BeyondLNT2">{{cite web |title=Leave No Trace Starts at Home: A Response to Critics and Vision for the Future |url=http://www.gregory-simon.com/GLS/Research_and_Publications_files/Alagona%20%26%20Simon%202012.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141101004203/http://www.gregory-simon.com/GLS/Research_and_Publications_files/Alagona%20%26%20Simon%202012.pdf |archive-date=2014-11-01 |access-date=2014-10-31 |publisher=Ethics, Place and Environment}}</ref>

Other critics of Leave No Trace have argued that it is impractical, displaces [[environmental impact of tourism|environmental impacts]] to other locations, "obscures connections between the uses of outdoor products and their production and disposal impacts" and have questioned how much the ethic affects everyday environmental behavior.<ref>{{cite journal| title=Contradictions at the confluence of commerce, consumption and conservation; or, an REI shopper camps in the forest, does anyone notice?| doi=10.1016/j.geoforum.2012.11.022| volume=45| journal=Geoforum|pages=325–336| year=2013| last1=Simon| first1=Gregory L.| last2=Alagona| first2=Peter S.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=https://wea.memberclicks.net/assets/docs/2013_colloquium/2013%20olrs%20book%20of%20abstracts_final.pdf#page=22| title=Environmentally Responsible Behavior and the Application of Leave No Trace beyond the Backcountry| publisher=Outdoor Leadership Research Symposium| access-date=2014-10-31| archive-date=2014-11-01| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141101005738/https://wea.memberclicks.net/assets/docs/2013_colloquium/2013%20olrs%20book%20of%20abstracts_final.pdf#page=22| url-status=dead}}</ref>