Bushcraft vs LNT

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This is a section of #AskPaulKirtley which many people particularly liked. Some viewers suggested that I release it as a separate video. So, here it is...

And here is the link to the full episode of #askpaulkirtley - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA5cXwn65a0

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Tags: bushcraft,LNT,leave no trace,environment,camping,hiking,fires,campfires,traditional skills,modern camping,lightweight camping,bushcraft vs LNT,LNT vs bushcraft,Paul Kirtley,Paul Kirtley Bushcraft,paulkirtley,conservation,environmentalism,environmental protection,keeping things in perspective

Video Transcription

next one is about Leave No Trace and bushcraft and this is from Rob Hayden and his question is hella Paul I always enjoy your work and value your opinions I'm from the US but hope to travel to England one day and participate in one of your courses that would be good Rob maybe I can come and do a workshop in the States one of these years as well as possibility we'll see I'd like your opinion on a statement that was posted on an internet forum hopefully I'm not jumping into jumping into a pool with sharks here and jumping in at the deep end but anyway bushcraft and Leave No Trace is at cross-purposes leave no traces and outdoor philosophy whereby one minimizes his or her impact on the natural world while traveling or camping in the backcountry on the other hand bushcraft uses skills such as fire lighting and shelter building where the emphasis is on the use of materials from the natural world to practice and refine those skills by its very nature bushcraft alters the natural world in some small or not so small way to be fair the original statement about leaving a trace and brush grappling across purposes was posted on a forum discussing the Appalachian Trail which sees intensive use by millions of hikers every season in that context I totally agree that all hikers should practice Leave No Trace principles if not the Appalachian Trail corridor would quickly become denuded of any vegetation and cluttered with a litter of modern society but what about areas of less intensive use does a gathering of dead wood for a campfire or the building of a shelter from natural materials really matter in the long run what is the responsible thing to do given these two opposing goals I very much like to hear your opinion thank you rob quite a long question Rob but worth while and worth having a discussion about I've had discussions of a similar nature with people online people certainly have come onto my blog and looked at say for example some of the fire lighting aspects and said that it's irresponsible they've said similar things about to building and personally I think it's irresponsible for me not to share those pieces of knowledge with people if they can help save somebody's life we you mentioned the Appalachian Trail we've had a few unfortunate cases in recent years of individuals who have been quite well equipped either through hiking or day hiking or doing a multi-day section of the Appalachian Trail and in fact other long-distance trails in other parts of North America and unfortunately perishing and at the end of the day it's the lack of skills and lack of experience in nature and that's not meant in an airy-fairy way it's just lack of skills lack of experience which unfortunately was certainly contributing factor to some of those people you can have all the kit in the world but if you don't have some basic knowledge of hypothermia of heat loss to an environment of signaling of relocation strategies in terms of your navigation skills and in terms of carrying the correct navigation equipment in terms of understanding what people do when you're missing in terms of how do they search for you where do they search and having a good strategy in place in terms of leaving word and somebody doing something about you not coming back all of those things need to be in place you need to have some basic skills the ability to light a fire the ability to find water the ability to navigate wet by natural means the ability to find food they're not necessarily something that you're going to use very much at all on a long distance hike such as on the Appalachian Trail but if you come and stuck they're useful back stops and so I would say they're worth knowing for those reasons but that wasn't the core of your question the core of your question was about Leave No Trace versus bushcraft and and the ethos of Leave No Trace and on the one hand i think is a very good one because it's about minimizing your impact on an environment that your visit thing and I think that's a good message and I think that's a good philosophy and i would say anyone who considers themselves a bushcraft person or a bushcraft that should also look to minimize the impact that they have whatever they're doing the impact of that activity on the environment because you can have a fire and make a right bloody mess or have a fire and leave very very little trace to the extent where nobody would notice other than somebody who's got some tracking skills and so it's about it's about degrees nobody that visits an environment is going to leave no trace whatsoever unless they can levitate they're going to have an impact on an environment and just by walking through it they will have an environment by their football by urinating by defecating by camping in particular spots they will have an impact on the environment so you cannot hike and camp in an area without having an impact on it it's just a matter of degree many bushcraft skills and you mentioned shelter building and fire lighting they will have an impact on the environment and they will use natural resources at the end of the day I always say bushcraft is about study of nature and a study of the use of natural resources but equally we need to balance that with some consideration and for nature we also need to cut balance it with some consideration for other users and we don't want to be leaving fire scars we don't want to be stripping birch bark from live trees in any circumstances really and you know I see people doing that and that gives bushcraft a bad name you should be looking to minimize the impact and I don't think people should be building big natural shelters or on trails like the Appalachian Trail because it's at odds with what you're trying to achieve you need to be covering a distance and I've not hiked the Appalachian Trail personally I've had some very close friends who have and to thru hike the Appalachian Trail in one season takes you all your time to be walking and moving on most days you're not going to be building natural shelters and and so that's not even an option the this so i would i would admit that building shelters lighting fires does consume some local materials in an area and the question then is do you want to be doing that is it so is it so intensely used that that is going to be of a detriment to the area where i am at the moment I've been coming here for 35 years in this area in the north of England and very very few people come here if I was to camp here and have a fire and leave very very little trace of my of my presence here I'm sat on a huge piece of dead oak if i was to burn us if i was to have a campfire here tonight I'd burn a small about very very small amount of it I do it there's a small stream I would maybe do it on the banks of the stream where it's going to get washed away in high water and on ground that's safe and I wouldn't be doing it over there underneath some coniferous trees which are over there where I might set fire to the root systems consideration for the environment and leaving very very little trace I'm gonna have very little impact on this area and some people would say the Leave No Trace and zealots and there are some zealots out there they would say you can't do that you should not have that you should not be doing that well what I'll throw back at those people are if you are hiking through an area with your plastic gear your metal stoves where do those resources come from where does the oil come from to make the plastic things that you're using people talk about having putting down a sheet to have a mound fire where does that plastic come from where does it go when you finished using it at the end of its life the end of your life metal stoves yet they have less impact on the environment than having a fire the local environment but where does a metal come from what about the big hole in the ground where the the minerals were dug out what about the row to that mine what about the processing plant and the the pollution from the steel mill or the aluminium mill and the plans you know extraction of bauxite turning of bauxite into aluminium is very energy intensive and aluminium plants are often near hydroelectric schemes because they need that much electricity what's the impact of flooding an area for a hydro scheme to generate electricity to then and the impact of an aluminium plant and the extraction of bauxite so that you can have your aluminium parts of your stove so that you don't have a fire in the local environment every single thing that we consume has an effect somewhere on the planet and so at the end of the day I think it's an argument about local impact versus a wider impact and in your question you talked about having a smaller a large impact I don't think any bushcraft activity has a large impact in terms of what you can do as an individual on a local environment unless you accidentally start a bushfire and that isn't a bushcraft activity that's just that's just carelessness it's an accident you could do that with a stove you could do that with a petrol stove as well and so you need to be careful whenever you've got any sort of flame in an environment that is prone to being ignited you need to follow the rules and you need to be careful but that aside I think it's an argument about local impact versus global impact the biggest impacts on our environment are not people going camping the biggest impact on our environment our people driving to the trailhead in cars that burn fuel that are made of steel and aluminium and plastic and even if you use an electric car where does the where do the wet is there nickel and lithium and all the other ingredients for batteries where does that come from where's the hole in the ground that that comes out of where does that go when it's finished and every single thing that you do has an impact using em gore-tex or other breathable fabrics they're made of plastic it's made of oil using a metal stove it comes out the ground burning fuels and you know even white gas Coleman fuel you're very clean but it's made it's a petrochemical it comes out the ground somewhere and so we're arguing about people having campfires versus using stoves and some instances yet we're burning fuel in our cars and in our homes when we're not in the wilderness that is based on people deforesting areas of Alberta and extracting oil from tar sands we're using wood in our homes in chipboard for furniture and other aspects of our homes that that is doubt that is being used and there's been taken from clear cutting and clear felling them you know there is a lot that we there's a massive impact that we have particularly in the first world because most people who go on wilderness trips are wealthy enough to have the time where they can go and do those things where the biggest consumers in our day-to-day life so I think it's completely absurd frankly that we're arguing about these small differences in a local environment when we're having such big big impacts in our home lives and those are the areas where we should really be focusing on and now I going back to the original question should some areas not not have fires and camping and have very tight restrictions absolutely national parks provincial parks areas that are popular that get a lot of people going to them they need to be protected both for the sake of the natural environment and for the sake of the enjoyment of other people who are going there so yes and we do need to strike a balance but I don't think bushcraft is inherently bad and I don't think Leave No Trace is inherently bad i think the philosophies sometimes and our odds for reasons which are ludicrous and there are reasons for applying each in different circumstances and i think even if you're doing something like hiking the Appalachian Trail you should have a backstop of bushcraft and survival skills because then if you do get lost if you do get into trouble then you've got a fallback set of skills that you can fall back on and do remember if you're carrying plastic metal and things yes you'll have less impact on that local environment but you're having a big impact somewhere else because you're part of that industrial use of nature and which has far bigger consequences look at the Amazon look at em oil tar sands look at em oil drilling around the world look at metals mining look at industrial plants for smelting and turning materials into metals look at oil refineries that is what you're using when you're relying entirely on kit in the wilderness you're having an effect somewhere else and it may be out site it may be out of mind but you're still having an impact on the planet that's my view you