Leave No Trace shines a spotlight on the Stanislaus

SONORA, Calif. (June 9, 2026) — Conservation is the heart of everything in our National Forests, but how do you teach respect for wildlife, nature, and our national lands in a world that is chronically online and seems to move further away from the natural world with each passing moment? If you’re the Stanislaus, you call your Leave No Trace partners for some much-needed education events.

“I think that’s the hardest part, is that people are not remembering to plan properly, they’re not remembering to dispose of their waste properly and so Leave No Trace allows us to remember things that we would normally forget and then we are minimizing our impacts,” said Christina Wilkinson, visitor center and interpretive programs manager 

Leave No Trace hosted four spotlight events across the Stanislaus National Forest outreach events aimed at educating staff, volunteers, partners, and the local community on good stewardship and the seven Leave No Trace principles, May 14-16, 2026.

“We are here to shine a spotlight on the area to recognize the efforts that Stanislaus has been doing to keep this place beautiful and we’re trying to help further that purpose, “said Rob Pelton, Subaru Leave No Trace Traveling team member.

These events included an effective communication workshop at the Supervisor’s Office in Sonora, Leave No Trace Trivia at Bear Tent Brewing, a Wildflower Walk in the Sugar Pine District with Columbia’s College’s Professor Tom Hofstra, and a stewardship and trail maintenance event at the Ferretti Motorized Trail in the Groveland District.

“We are a very heavily used forest, in fact the Groveland Ranger District is right on the border of Yosemite National Park, we have a lot of visitors that come here every single day,” said Genie Moore, visitor services manager with the Stanislaus National Forest.

Leave No Trace is a nonprofit, whose goal is to lessen impacts on nature and our resources, so that it can be enjoyed for generations to come, said Rob Pelton, Leave No Trace Traveling Subaru team member. The nonprofit accomplishes this through training, increasing stewardship and empowering local communities and expanding science and research. 

“We want to influence behavior, from research, we know that a lot of people in the U.S. are losing their basic understanding of how nature works,” said Pelton.

There are seven principles of Leave No Trace, and while they are not hard rules, they are guidelines that help recreators enjoy nature while minimizing their impacts, he said. The seven principles are:

1. Plan ahead and prepare
2. Travel and camp on durable surfaces
3. Dispose of waste properly
4. Leave what you find and just take a picture instead
5. Minimize your campfire impacts
6. Respect wildlife
7. Be considerate of others when outdoors

While it can seem like a lot to remember, these principles are better viewed as a spectrum, a recreator can do little thing and big things, from throwing away trash at your campsite to organizing a river cleanup, when we all contribute, it makes a difference and lessens our impact, explained Pelton.

The Stanislaus, like many national forests, sees millions of recreators each year, and many of them come from urban and suburban environments where they do not have much experience with nature or the outdoors. There are an estimated 1.3 billion visits to public lands each year, including state parks. Changing perspectives and educating people is often less costly than restoring damaged areas, and it also keeps these places open to the public, as damaged areas often need to be shut down to assess and rehabilitate, which can take years.

“It’s less costly to educate than to restore, it sometimes takes years or decades to restore areas and this can limit access,” said Jeanelle Soland, Subaru Leave No Trace Traveling team member.

The Spotlight event was carefully planned and coordinated by forest staff, who applied for a grant to bring the traveling team down to the forest and created each event with Leave No Trace to maximize exposure within local communities. The Stanislaus, a heavily visited forest, see impacts and damage to natural resources each year, and the events were planned with one goal, to minimize resource damage to the Stanislaus so that recreation opportunities remain open for all to enjoy.

“At the Sugar Pine Ranger District, we are the entry point to the Emigrant Wilderness, and we have thousands and thousands of backpackers each summer. So, it’s really important to our forest to have the leave no trace principles displayed widely and shared widely so that our forest is conserved and preserved for future generations,” said Moore.