Originating in the mid-20th century, the concept started as a movement in the United States in response to ecological damage caused by wilderness recreation.

[3] Groups such as the Sierra Club, the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), and the Boy Scouts of America were advocating minimum impact camping techniques, and companies like REI and The North Face began sharing the movement.

[11] Leave No Trace works to build awareness, appreciation and respect for wildlands through education, research, volunteerism and partnerships.

In 2002, environmental historian James Morton Turner argued that Leave No Trace focused "largely on protecting wilderness" rather than tackling questions such as the "economy, consumerism, and the environment", and that it "helped ally the modern backpacker with the wilderness recreation industry" by encouraging backpackers to purchase products advertising Leave No Trace, or asking people to bring a petroleum stove instead of building a natural campfire.

[15] In 2009, Gregory Simon and Peter Alagona argued that there should be a move beyond Leave No Trace, and that the ethic "disguises much about human relationships with non-human nature" by making it seem that parks and wilderness areas are "pristine nature" which "erases their human histories, and prevents people from understanding how these landscapes have developed over time through complex human–environment interactions".

They also write about how "the LNT logo becomes both a corporate brand and an official stamp of approval" in outdoor recreation stores like REI.

[16] The authors articulate their new environmental ethic as expanding LNT, not rejecting it all together, and share the seven principles of what they call 'Beyond Leave No Trace':[16] In 2012, in response to critiques of their 2009 article, Simon and Alagona wrote that they "remain steadfast in our endorsement of LNT’s value and potential" but that they believe that "this simple ethic is not enough in a world of global capital circulation."