We believe wise decisions are made when people have the right kind of information.  Most information is too vague to make a wise decision about.  When we amplify the wilderness no-toilet problem on our blog posts and articles or even in our company name, we’re providing a high level of qualitative information.  Most of our readers have experienced the “no toilets in wilderness problem.”  They’ve experienced first hand coming up on piles of human poop and toilet paper left by negligent people.  And a lot of them get angry about it.

Everything we say is true about the subject (and supported by direct personal experiences or from the National Forest Service, BLM, or from the dozens of blogs that focus on the same or similar issues we read that share personal experiences with the human dung and toilet paper problem in the wild places.  There isn’t an iota of vagary.  

Changing the Way People Behave While Visiting the Wild Places  

There is at the bottom of our business a political aspect that we have no intention of hiding from.  The political aspect revolves around an attitude in America (the entire West for that matter) toward nature.  That somehow “nature” will take care of all our messes.  We intend to use the Web to create email petitions to preserve, protect, and expand wilderness.  We believe we can get tens of thousands of people to “sign” the petitions we generate.  Those petitions will then be sent to our own Senator Maria Cantwell, who has initiated a lot of legislation creating new wilderness areas in the State of Washington.

Our GOSWI tribe (Good Stewards of Wilderness International) will enlist the aid of all those who sign our petitions to preserve, protect, and expand wilderness to use our toilet product as part of the Leave No Trace principles: “pack it in, pack it out,” or “bury it, or pack it out.”  We believe this is the most powerful political strategy we can formulate.  

Visiting Congressional Field Offices

As the number of signers on our online petitions grow (our first petition will be available online in early November 2007), we intend to encourage the signers to visit congressional field offices around the country.  Go alone, if necessary.  Our direct experience is that much can be done all by yourself.  We believe we can encourage GOSWI supporters to visit all 435 U.S. delegations.  The idea is to get congressional support to produce legislation that will increase penalties for those who continue to behave negligently while visiting the remaining wild places.   We also want to see many new wildernesses added to the U.S. commons.  We also would like to get congressional members to advocate Leave No Trace principles to their constituents and - yes - mention our wilderness toilet product kit as a piece of gear that can make a positive difference to the health of the wilderness areas in their districts.  

Since there are already thousands of bloggers involved with wilderness issues online, we intend to develop a sort of “Grand Central Station” of blogs with the GOSWI blog, and to make our e-newsletter Everything Wilderness mandatory reading to all who care about the wild places and the wild things that inhabit them.