Marquette County Conservation District and Travel Marquette partner together for ‘Leave No Trace’ series

MARQUETTE, Mich. (WJMN) – Marquette County Conservation district and Travel Marquette are partnering together to leave no trace on the trails.

‘Leave No Trace’ is a set of seven principles that encourages people to leave any impact on the ecosystem when participating in outdoor recreation. The seven principles are:

• Plan ahead and prepare
• Travel and camp on durable surfaces
• Dispose of waste properly
• Leave what you find
• Minimize campfire impacts
• Respect wildlife
• Be considerate of others

Wednesday evening, the organizations hosted a ‘Leave No Trace’ forestry workshop on the trails by Hogback Mountain.

“In Marquette here we have Travel Marquette running a ‘Respect Marquette’ campaign,” said Maddie O’Donnell, District Manager, Marquette County Conservation District. “So they’ve put out a lot of tips as well on how to use the trails without having a big impact. That can include the time of year that you’re hiking, not hiking through super muddy bits that will leave large impacts on the trail. Obviously making sure you leave no litter on the trail, following the trail and not going off of it so that you’re impacting the flora that might be around. So just being really mindful of the fact that while you’re out there enjoying it, there’s other creatures that live out there and you don’t want to impact their habitats.”

There will be a another workshop like this but on the water on Tuesday, June 25 at 4:00 p.m. at McClure Basin in Marquette. This is an aquatic invasive species edition. Participants are encouraged to to bring their kayaks, paddleboards, etc. as they will be out on the water. For more information on that event, click here.

For more information on the Leave No Trace effort, click here.