Why the Smallest Habits Matter Most

A single night under canvas can leave a mark that lasts far longer than the memory of it. On high moorland and in ancient woodland, the growing season is short — sometimes only a handful of weeks between late spring and early autumn — and the plants that hold those places together grow slowly. A tent-sized patch of flattened heather, moss or bilberry may take years to recover, and if the same pitch is used again the following weekend, it may never recover at all.

Leave No Trace is not about tiptoeing around guiltily. It is a set of practical habits that keep wild places worth returning to — for the curlews, the juniper, the oak seedlings, and for the next person who arrives at dusk hoping for a quiet night out.

Plan Ahead, and Know Where You're Allowed

Good planning prevents most damage before you even leave the house. The first question is not where you'd like to sleep, but whether you may.

• In Scotland, lightweight wild camping is legal on most unenclosed land under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 — but not in enclosed fields, not beside roads, and not in some popular loch shores where byelaws now require a permit between spring and autumn.
• In England and Wales, wild camping generally requires the landowner's permission. Dartmoor has restricted wild camping to specific areas with permission since 2023, so check the current rules before you travel.
• National parks and designated areas often have clear guidance on their websites — read it, and respect any seasonal closures for nesting birds or fragile vegetation.
• Check the forecast, ground conditions and daylight hours. Arriving exhausted in the dark leads to rushed, careless pitching on whatever looks flat.

Avoid the honeypot car parks and the obvious beauty spots. Two hundred metres of extra walking often means you'll have the place to yourself — and the ground will thank you for spreading the pressure.

Pitch on Ground That Bounces Back

Choose a pitch that is already bare, compacted or stony: gravel, sand, dry short turf, or a spot that clearly shows the flattened imprint of tents before yours. Existing pitches are the single best choice, because the damage — if there is any — has already been done.

What to avoid:

• Cushion moss, lichen, heather, bilberry and delicate alpine plants, which bruise and die under a groundsheet.
• Grass tussocks and soft, springy vegetation, which never quite springs back.
• Anywhere within about 30 metres of a stream, loch edge or tarn, where banks erode and wildlife comes to drink.

Arrive late and leave early. Pitch at dusk, sleep, and pack up soon after dawn. That keeps your footprint to a minimum and gives the ground the best chance of recovering. Keep groups small — one or two tents — and don't dig drainage trenches or rearrange stones to level the ground. A slightly lumpy night's sleep is a fair trade.

Cook Clean: Stoves, Fires and Food

A simple camping stove is almost always the better choice. It leaves no scar, no ash, no blackened stones and no ring of missing kindling. In fragile moorland and woodland, open fires cause lasting damage: scorched peat, sterilised soil, and trees stripped of deadwood that insects and fungi depend on.

Where fires are permitted, keep them small, use an established fire ring if one exists, burn only dead and fallen wood, and never leave a fire unattended. Better still, cook, eat and then sit under the stars rather than beside a fire.

Store food securely and cook away from your tent. Never leave scraps, crumbs or leftover pasta on the ground — they attract scavengers and habituate wildlife to human food, which rarely ends well for the animal.

Human Waste, Washing Up and the Awkward Bits

This is the part most people gloss over, and it's the part that matters most in busy areas.

• If there are no facilities, walk well away from water, paths and pitches — at least 30 metres — and dig a hole 15–20 centimetres deep. Replace the turf neatly. Carry out the toilet paper in a sealed bag.
• In heavily used areas where digging isn't appropriate, use a waste bag or portable toilet and carry everything out with you.
• Wash up and brush your teeth at least 30 metres from any stream, loch or tarn. Strain food particles from the water and pack them out with your rubbish. Soap, even biodegradable soap, harms aquatic life.

Leave It Better Than You Found It

Before you walk away, turn around and look at the pitch as if you'd never been there. Then check again — the small things are the ones that get missed.

• Fruit peel, tea bags, nutshells, oat husks and apple cores are litter, not compost. They are slow to break down in cool upland conditions and they draw animals in. Carry them out.
• Check for tent pegs, cable ties, elastic bands, scraps of tape, tissues and loose threads. A final sweep of the ground on hands and knees takes thirty seconds.
• If you find litter that isn't yours, take it with you. It costs you nothing and it protects the place you came to enjoy.

Leave gates as you found them, keep dogs close and under control, and give grazing animals and ground-nesting birds a wide berth. Do all of that, and the only evidence of your visit will be a slightly better-kept bit of hillside — and the fact that nobody would ever know you'd been there at all.