We must respect our scenic gems
If you go down to the woods today, leave nothing behind you, take nothing with you. That’s the message from the Leave No Trace organisation, in a programme adopted by Coillte nine years ago.
I’m lucky enough to be in the woods every day and most of the time visitors treat this place with the respect it deserves. But every now and then, there are exceptions to that rule. Crisp packets and empty beer cans seem to be the biggest offenders.
But abandoned tents, old backpacks, items of clothing and on one horrible occasion, a bag of dead puppies, have also been left for someone else to deal with. It’s an attitude I have a hard time getting my head around. How can you visit a pristine area – which is, presumably, what attracted you in the first place – then go about wrecking it?
Does it occur to the people who do this that their anti- social behaviour means someone else has to clean up behind them and that their actions put wildlife at risk?
And how would they feel if someone came to their home and showed no respect for their property or their garden, using it as some sort of skip and worse again, an outside toilet? People who live in this glen are good about picking up after careless visitors but they shouldn’t have to compensate for others’ lack of personal responsibility.
My first reaction when I saw tents early the other morning when I was walking the dogs was that summer was really here and people were enjoying the good weather and the great outdoors.
But that was before I realised that the path was littered with crisp packets, empty beer cans, the odd sock and human waste.
It was disgusting and depressing to think that anyone could pollute a nature reserve in such a fashion. I contacted Coillte who are responsible for this part of the woods. I thought they might know who these campers were.
But they didn’t and hadn’t issued permits for camping, which are required in areas that are not designated Coillte campsites.
I went back later to talk to the campers, who were just emerging from their tents. They were a group of young girls who I think had just finished their exams and wanted to unwind, which is fair enough. They were polite and receptive but they hadn’t seemed to realise that this is a protected area and that their behaviour, apart from being deeply anti-social was also a threat to the wildlife that this nature reserve was designed to protect. And they agreed to clean up after them.
Coillte sent someone down later that day to check on them and to reiterate the message of responsible behaviour and by the next day they were gone, with most of their debris taken home with them.
It set me to thinking though that at this time of year and with school nearly out that it was a good time to talk to Coillte about their Leave No Trace (LNT) programme and how they manage problems like this during the busy summer months.
The principles of LNT were developed in the US, in response to concerns that the increasing number of human visitors to uninhabited or lightly inhabited wilderness areas would eventually destroy the very characteristics that make them attractive and irreparably harm native species. LNT began in the ’60s and ’70s, to ensure minimal impact on the landscape from the increased number of hikers, backpackers and campers who had begun to visit wilderness areas.
Today the Centre For Outdoor Ethics has provided training in every state and in 25 countries, one of which is Ireland. Its Leave No Trace ethos is best understood as an educational and ethical programme and not as a set of rules and regulations. Coillte’s Bill Murphy was instrumental in introducing LNT to Coillte some nine years ago and is passionate about the implementation of the programme.
It’s an educational, ethically based programme which welcomes responsible users to Coillte’s forests and wild places and it has been very well received. At the start of our marked trailheads the LNT guidelines are also posted. I was fortunate enough to be the first chairman of the Irish branch and from the beginning, education was a major part of our brief. We don’t want to create the impression that we are going to be there cleaning up behind people, rather we want to encourage personal responsibility. It’s about making the right choices. We want people to realise that these are our forests, our heritage.
Yes, unfortunately we do, in areas like the Dublin Mountains. We prosecute whenever possible and on the more positive side, there has definitely been a chance in attitudes over the last few years.
The Nephin Wilderness Project will deliver a dedicated wilderness of forest, mountain bog and lakes. 11.000 hectares have been designated, and Coillte have taken 4,400 hectares out of their commercial forest operation and will be improving habitat and landscape quality over the next 15 years. It’s a very exciting project that will run over 50 years and will ultimately have no human intervention. I’ve been with Coillte for 33 years and I was a forester before that. I’m Head of Recreation, Environment and Public Goods and I love my job, working with an organisation that embraces a scheme like LNT. I think 95% of people want to do the right thing. LNT is the best way to illustrate just what that is.
