Leave No Trace But Love
July 15, 2008
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine.
Anton Flores is the chair and assistant professor of Human Services at LaGrange College and leads Alterna, an organization that performs Christian acts of mercy and justice in solidarity with poor Latinos.
The concept of “leave no trace” is to provide a guideline for reducing our impact on the natural environment and on the experience for other visitors of God’s wonderful creation. Consider the following principles for how to engage with forests, mountains, seashores, plains, freshwater and wetland environments. According to the Boys Scouts of America, these “leave no trace” ethics include:
1. Plan Ahead and Prepare — Proper trip planning and preparation helps hikers and campers accomplish trip goals safely and enjoyably while minimizing damage to natural and cultural resources.
2. Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces — Damage to land occurs when visitors trample vegetation or communities of organisms beyond recovery.
3. Dispose of Waste Properly (Pack It In, Pack It Out) — This simple yet effective saying motivates backcountry visitors to take their trash home with them.
4. Leave What You Find — Allow others a sense of discovery, and preserve the past. Leave rocks, plants, animals, archaeological artifacts, and other objects as you find them. Examine but do not touch cultural or historical structures and artifacts.
5. Minimize Campfire Impacts — True Leave No Trace fires are small. Use dead and downed wood that can be broken easily by hand.
6. Respect Wildlife — Quick movements and loud noises are stressful to animals. You are too close if an animal alters its normal activities.
7. Be Considerate of Other Visitors — Thoughtful campers respect other visitors and protect the quality of their experience.
Well, as I’ve been here in Guatemala spending my third consecutive summer serving at the Latin American Anabaptist Seminary I’ve been wondering if there shouldn’t be a “leave no trace” ethic to traveling to the 2/3 World. Many of the folks that I meet coming through the seminary’s guesthouse are coming because they want to both transform and be transformed by the poor. This is noble and perhaps even God-honoring but what does mutual conversion look like and how can this quest, at times and even unintentionally, actually be destructive or even a continuation of the colonization of the “New World” and an elimination of indigenous cultures? Could it be that, without a proper ethic of entering a new culture, especially indigenous ones, we could be leaving a trace that is caustic to the social and spiritual environment?
In Guliz Ger and Russell Berk’s journal article in the September, 1996 Journal of Consumer Policy, “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke: Consumptioscapes of the ‘Less Affluent World,’” they excellently point out how materialism is being imported into the poorest countries of the world at the speed of cyberspace. Rather than consumption becoming democratized, Ger and Berk contend that wealthy nations are leaving a trace that will lead to further social inequality, class polarization, consumer frustration, stress and threats to health and the environment. Factors contributing to this unprecedented production of false desires include global mass media and the marketing activities of transnational firms. But they also propose other culprits and I want to highlight and narrow the light on these unusual suspects.
Tourists also ignite these consuming fires of want in the midst of mind-blowing need. But what about short-term missions teams from North American churches? When they travel to developing countries to spread the Gospel, what Gospel are they spreading? Is it the Gospel of God’s kingdom or the gospel of a syncretic culture that has enmeshed materialism with a prosperity gospel that does not translate to another culture nor another time? When church groups visit countries where the majority of its citizens live on less than $2 a day and come armed with the Word of God while listening to Christian music on I-Pods while wearing the latest in Christian threads, what message is coming loud and clear? What trace are they leaving? Is it possible to develop community with the poor and experience the Christ who hides in the distressing disguise of the poor when we enter into this sacred space unrepentant and even unaware of the grip that materialism has on us? How can the poor in spirit and the poor in every other way commune in a way that glorifies God and affirms the inherent dignity of us all? Below is my attempt to develop a “leave no destructive trace” for short-term mission teams who do need to escape from the insular world of America in order to better know God, but not at the expense of the world’s poorest inhabitants. A “leave no destructive trace” ethic for missions could include:
1. Plan Ahead and Prepare – Proper missions planning and preparation helps members accomplish trip goals safely and enjoyably while minimizing damage to natural and cultural resources. At a minimum, short-term missions teams can learn about the socio-political realities of the country they will be visiting.
2. Travel in a Way that Empowers the Poor – Support indigenous cultures when you decide on where to eat and lodge. Instead of seeking out an oasis of American culture, resist eating at a McDonald’s when you’re in Latin America or Africa and instead broaden your palate and support locally owned restaurants or markets that offer local cuisine. As for lodging, try homestays over hotels or locally owned hotels over first-class franchises.
3. Dispose of Waste Properly (Don’t Pack It In and You Won’t Have to Pack It Out) – Leave the luxuries of home at home. Remove from your luggage anything the poor of the country you are visiting don’t need or couldn’t afford. Look in a full-length mirror and remove any items that serve as status symbols (i.e., unnecessary jewelry or fashion conscious clothing).
4. Take Home What You Find – When you return home, share with others what you discovered to be the strengths of the people you met. Perhaps more importantly than what you did in the name of Christ you should share how the poor reflected Christ to you?
5. Maximize your Flight from Consumerism’s Impact – True discipleship is about making temporal things small and making eternal things large. Return home and review all the dead things you lived without and get rid of them! Grow in your generosity and find ways to support efforts to holistically empower the poor around the world.
6. Respect Indigenous Cultures – Quick judgments and ethnocentric noises are damaging to the people you will visit. You are too ethnocentric if your presence alters the cultural activities of the indigenous peoples you are visiting.
7. Be Considerate of Other Visitors – Remember that other visitors may also be spiritually impoverished. Respectfully continue on your journey toward leaving no destructive trace so that others may feel included and invited on this sojourn.
Maybe leave no trace is a misnomer, even for the outdoors. Even if one can follow the principles while camping or hiking both the land and the wanderer are, in the best scenario, both enhanced and forever changed. May the same be true when Christ leads members of His church in North America to fellowship with the poor overseas. “Don’t run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you love others, you complete what the law has been after all along .” – Romans 13:8
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