One on one education in varying methods hopefully will 'eat the elephant'-one bite at a time. But its worth it; because the alternative of letting their ignorant and bad behavior damage the outdoors- to me is unacceptable.....
But wait! There's more. For whatever it's worth, that's the endless struggle. I well remember the decades-long efforts to educate baby boomers, who started hiking in the late 60s and early 70s. It was a dual problem. Then, there was not even the "leave no trace/minimum impact" philosophy as an ideal to point to. For instance, it was only just being recognized as a problem to not bury your garbage and everyone carried a hatchet to hack away at wood. The Sierra Club was still running trips into the 60s with week long camps of 50 even 100 people; being resupplied by mule strings of 30 animals; sending out sawyers each day to cut wood to feed the non-stop campfires.
Which is all to say that, yes, there's a new generation of semi-clueless coming along. For my part, I'm happy they're out hiking than staying home watching video games. I'm also reasonably confident that with a combination of cheerful pep talks and the occasional citation, like previous generations, they'll come to understand why it's important to take care of the place.
