Abuja has a vibrant hiking community with more than 20 main hiking groups, (with new groups being created everyday) and an average of 100 hikers per group going up some of the major hills in and around Abuja every weekend. On average each hiker brings a plastic bottle of water with them. Imagine 2000 plastic bottles left behind in the hills every Saturday. The natural environment is giving a stress outlet that invigorates both our mind and bodies. Leaving trash where it can stay for hundreds of years, polluting the environment, harming wildlife, would also mar future hiking experiences. Internationally, conscious hikers practice ‘Leave No Trace’ which means cleaning up after themselves and ensuring they leave no changes to the natural terrain. Because of the popularity of hiking and the debris left by unaware hikers, ‘Leave No Trace’ has been taken further to ‘Negative Trace’. This entails cleaning up anything left behind by humans in the hills, to restore nature to its natural form so it can be enjoyed by anyone and everyone who ventures into the hills.
This birthed the first conscious hike, the Negative Trace Hike (NTH) held in April 2019. It was an opportunity for hikers and nature lovers to come together to enjoy nature, exercise their bodies, cleanse their minds and then, thank the environment by removing as much trace of human activity as possible.
On this April day in 2019 we chose one of the most frequently visited hill in Abuja by hikers, church goers and individual adventure seekers. Supported by the green communities of SustyVibes and Pick That Trash; youths aligned with the environmental cause: Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI); Abuja Quiz Night and a Hiking Community: Tha Outdoor Tribe. At more than 300 in number we were armed with gloves, sacks and trash bags. Equal parts fun, equal parts clean-up exercise, we ended the morning with almost 100kg of waste collected. A quarter of which was plastic waste, taken to recycling and the rest sent to landfill. The waste found paints a picture of the activities going on in the hills and the necessity of proper waste management to be practiced by everyone
who visits. We found plastic bottles, glass bottles, plastic bags, styrofoam packs, plastic cutlery, shoes, plastic wrappers and diapers.
The success of this exercise was not just the clean-up but the residual effect of people becoming more conscious of the waste they generate and how to start recycling. CWR has taken it on board to rally all groups and individuals who hike the hills to re-orient their thinking and work on lasting solutions. If you want to be a part of this send us an email and we will see how you can play a role in protecting nature.
The Negative Trace Hike for 2020 was planned to tie in with World Environment Day in June with the theme of Biodiversity. But due to the global situation it was cancelled. The Negative Trace Hike will be back.
