Conflict Between Trail Users Related to the Culture of Conservation

Hiking is a popular recreational activity for many—from tourists strolling through Yosemite Valley to thru-hikers dedicating months of their lives to their relationship with the trail; hiking is an activity that is widely accessible. Because of the diversity in motivations for hiking, there is inevitably a variety of hiking cultures. Exploring these different cultures and understanding how they relate to each other can help in engaging stakeholders of the trail. Understanding how different trail cultures relate to each other is an important step toward finding ways to encourage environmentally friendly outdoor recreation practices and developing hiker-approved (and environmentally conscious) technologies to use on the trail. In this chapter, we highlight the culture of conservation and how the values of conservancies conflict with their own missions. By studying tweets, we identify cultural differences between trail communities. We also identify the most significantly discussed forms of trail depreciation. Identifying the most significantly discussed forms of trail deprecation is helpful to conservation organizations so that they can more appropriately share which Leave No Trace practices hikers should place extra effort into practicing. In contrast, the lack of discussing conservation highlights the idea that preservation may not be a priority in hiking communities.