by Jerica Collins

Created on: April 13, 2007   Last Updated: April 27, 2007

Obviously you go camping because you love the outdoors. Camping can cause a lot of damage to the enviroment if you aren't careful what you do. You want to cause as little impact on this enivroment so the great outdoors can continue to be great for generations to come.

When camping try to not disturb wildlife. This means not disturbing nests, messing with baby animals, and not destroying homes of any animals. Obviously don't take any animal from the wild. The best way to capture wildlife is on film. Don't leave any food or trash out when you aren't around as an animal may get into and become sick, not to mention make a mess.

Second of all you don't want to go around hacking up all the trees for firewood. Use dry wood, twigs, branches, whatever is already lying around or better yet even bring your own. After all just cutting up trees for wood not only destroys animals homes, but may kill the tree. Live green wood isn't good for firewood anyway. Also taking too much of the dry wood around can actually take away protection for some wildlife so don't take too much. Be careful of all plant life and don't walk around crushing everything.

The easiest of all is picking up your trash. Don't leave wrappers, bottles, or any kind of trash around. Keep a garbage bag in the tent for trash. At most places there are even trash cans. If there are no trash cans then you'll have to just keep the bag until you can find one.

Be careful what you burn. Burning rubber, plastic, or any areosol can (it will explode) and things like that create fumes and some things can actually be toxic when burnt. We don't want to put that in our atmosphere. Most importantly ALWAYS put out your campfire if you are not able to be there to watch it. You know what Smokey the Bear says, "Only you can prevent forest fires."

One thing that some people may not think of is when "nature calls" and if there are no modern bathrooms around don't do your business near any water as it may contaminate it. It is a good idea to bury it for minimal impact on the enviroment.

So the rule of thumb is to just be careful about what you take from the area, never take animals, careful with your campfires, and just plain pick up after yourself. Camping is an enjoyable experience and we need to protect our environment while we enjoy it.

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