Visit The Outer Banks

Moore Reflects on Stewardship, Education and Engagement After Outdoor NC Guide Summit

By Jeff Schwartzenberg
May 13, 2025

In 2024, Outdoor NC – a Visit NC movement that is committed to promoting destination stewardship throughout North Carolina – launched its first Guide Summit with Leave No Trace as a partner. The event is part of a continued effort to elevate and support recreational tour guides and outfitters across the state. The in-person 2-day workshop gives guides a detailed understanding of Leave No Trace skills and equips them to share and teach Outdoor NC Leave No Trace Principles, along with ideas tied to destination stewardship, responsible travel and sustainable tourism, with their teams and guests.

The second annual Outdoor NC Guide Summit took place on March 24-25, 2025, at Raven Rock State Park in Lillington, NC. Jamie Moore, owner of Outer Banks Adventures, a family-owned recreation outfitter focused on educational eco tours by airboat and bus, participated in the summit and offered reflections from the experience.

Key takeaways from Jamie Moore

The source page includes interview responses from Jamie Moore of Outer Banks Adventures about the Outdoor NC Guide Summit, stewardship, education and visitor engagement. His comments center on stewardship as a shared responsibility among guides, outfitters, park and refuge officials, land managers, residents, town and county officials, real estate and rental communities, restaurants and staff. He connects that collaboration to places such as Cape Hatteras National Seashore, state parks, wildlife refuges, the beaches and the Outer Banks. Moore also describes how Outer Banks Adventures plans to speak more openly about its involvement with OBX Marine Mammal Stranding Network (MMSN), Network for Endangered Sea Turtles (N.E.S.T.), Coastal NC Alligator Research, NC Coastal Federation, NC Aquarium and Jennette’s Pier and the Coastal Environmental Educators Network (CEEN). His responses also discuss environmental education as central to the company’s work, including influences from Shannon, Terri Kirby Hathaway from NC Sea Grant at Coastal Studies Institute, Sara Hallas from the NC Coastal Federation, Virginia’s Ecotourism initiative and North Carolina’s Environmental Education Certification Program. His visitor guidance emphasizes slowing down, paying attention, connecting with the environment, reducing impact and helping protect the Outer Banks.

About Outdoor NC

In 2020, Visit NC, the state’s tourism office, joined with the NC Outdoor Recreation Industry Office and Leave No Trace to develop an initiative focused on helping North Carolina’s valued outdoor places continue to flourish for the millions of annual visitors who spend time in them. That effort became the Outdoor NC initiative. Since then, the program has grown into a movement that is committed to promoting stewardship throughout the state, encouraging people not only to get outside, but also to value and care for those places.

Outdoor NC focuses on three core areas:

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