Responsible recreation in Marquette County
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MARQUETTE COUNTY -- Tourist season is in full swing in Marquette and while tourists provide benefits to many area businesses, irresponsible recreation can have negative consequences on Marquette County's natural environment.
"Littering is a constant concern during peak tourism season," said Kai Gerster, Parks and Recreation coordinator for the city of Marquette. "This is especially true for holiday weekends and large-scale events."
In addition to littering, some behaviors which visitors and locals alike might not realize have negative effects on our beaches and parks include parking in restricted areas, bringing dogs to public bathing beaches and flying drones in protected wildlife areas.
Gerster encourages people to "obey local signage and follow the Leave No Trace principles to minimize impact on the environment' while recreating outdoors this summer.
"Leave No Trace" is a non-profit aiming to minimize human impact on parks, trails and public lands through seven principles: plan ahead and prepare, travel and camp on durable surfaces, dispose of waste properly, leave what you find, minimize campfire impacts, respect wildlife and be considerate of others.
More information on Leave No Trace is available at https://lnt.org/.
Travel Marquette, the official destination organization for Marquette County, has spent the last several years encouraging more responsible recreation across the county through their Respect Marquette Program, which employs Leave No Trace principles.
Respect Marquette began in 2022, when Travel Marquette met with community partners such as elected officials, municipality employees, trail groups, hoteliers, the Department of Natural Resources and representatives from several conservation groups.
"The startup of the coalition was largely around how we could try to subdue some of the negative effects after COVID and the increase of visitation and overuse of trails and parks in the area," said Travel Marquette Outreach and Sustainability Manager Anna Solberg.
"We started out that way, using it as a forum to get input for where we should send people, where we shouldn't send people, what is over-trafficked, what areas would like more visitors," said Travel Marquette CEO Susan Estler.
Through this feedback, Travel Marquette has amended their promotions, pausing the publicization of over-trafficked areas such as Dead River Falls, Sugar Loaf and Presque Isle Park.
"Presque Isle Park has probably seen the most significant traffic increase," said Escott. "That was during the pandemic ... and seems to have continued. Everybody realized what a beautiful area it is, how special it is."
Instead, Travel Marquette has started promoting destinations in parts of Marquette County that are looking for more tourism, such as Big Bay and Gwinn.
"We're trying to make it not just about the city of Marquette, or even Marquette Township, but the entire county," said Escott.
Respect Marquette also has spawned several programs through Travel Marquette aimed at sustainability, such as Bark Ranger, which provides poop bags to visitors traveling with their dogs. Their year-old Collect Marquette program looks to reduce the amount of trash on parks and trails by incentivizing trash pickup with tote bags and prize drawings.
More information on these programs can be found at https://www.travelmarquette.com/respect-marquette/.