One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, "What are you doing?"
The youth replied, "Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them back, they'll die."
"Son," the man said, "don't you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can't make a difference!"
After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said, "I made a difference for that one."

(Original story by Loren Eisley)

So it is when we are involved in outdoor activities. We can't control what everyone else is or is not doing, but we can make a difference with our personal actions. Let's consider this together:

When you visit a friend, you take care to leave your friend's home just as you found it. You would never think of trampling flower gardens, chopping down trees in the yard, putting soap in the drinking water, or marking your name on the living room wall. When you are outdoors, the same courtesies apply. Leave everything just as you found it. That is called Leave No Trace.

Leave No Trace is a nationally recognized outdoor skills and ethics awareness program that teaches us how to treat the environment. The seven principles are guidelines to follow at all times and are an awareness of and an attitude toward the land rather than a set of rules.

Leave No Trace is different from programs promoted by many conservation and environmental groups that are designed to restrict our access to outdoor resources that belong to all of us. The purpose of Leave No Trace is to help us enjoy any outdoor activity we want but to do it in a way that avoids impacts when possible and minimizes the impacts that are unavoidable. Leave No Trace principles are not about restrictions; they are about responsible enjoyment of our outdoor resources. Leave No Trace is not a simple program for visiting the outdoors; it is a way of life-and learning Leave No Trace concepts begin at home. The principles apply at home, in our neighborhoods, and in our local parks as much as in the back country. We should all practice Leave No Trace in our thinking and actions, wherever we go.

Leave No Trace principles might seem unimportant-just like saving only one starfish-until we consider the combined effects of millions of outdoor visitors. One poorly located campsite or campfire may have little significance, but thousands of such instances seriously degrade the outdoor experience for all. The USDA Forest Service estimates that in the year 2000 there were 8 million recreational users in the forest. By the year 2050, that number is expected to exceed 1.2 billion.

Scouting is a program of the outdoors in its very essence. The outdoors is not just the laboratory in which Scouting occurs; rather it is the testing, proving, and shaping ground in which youth learn independence, self-reliance, and appreciations for others and learn, in depth, the meaning of the Scout Oath and Scout Law.

Access to the outdoors has become far more restricted over the past few decades due to many more persons camping and hiking and the appreciation of the temporary and permanent impact which human use and overuse can have. Many past Scouting activities and styles of camping-enjoyable, rewarding, and character-building as they were-are no longer possible today. The question is not whether we will use Leave No Trace or continue as we did in the past; that option is not available. Rather, if we do not become widely known and acknowledged for our skill and practice in Leave No Trace, our ability to offer and carry out outdoor activities may be hurt or lost.

We can protect the environment whenever we are outdoors by remembering that, wherever we are, we are a visitor and by practicing the principles of Leave No Trace in all of our activities