Regarding the NPS morning report that was reposted here - it is
inaccurate. When it came out there was quite a bit of discussion on
the geocaching forums and it turns out if I remember correctly, that
the 'caches' weren't buried at all. The author just assumed
that 'cache' meant 'buried'. The idea that most 'caches'
or 'letterboxes' are buried is something that just isn't true but
keeps floating around like a bad urban legend. (The author also makes
an assertion about "the damage geocaching has and can cause to
historic, archeological and natural sites" without any facts to
support the claim. "HAS" not "might". That slanted statement really
boils my blood.) For anyone who wants to see the original NPS report
in its entirety, it is at
http://www.nps.gov/morningreport/msg00806.html
I also agree with Randy about the way land managers are going to look
at letterboxing and geocaching. To them, it doesn't matter what you
put in the little containers you hide, only that you're hiding them
on the lands that they are responsible for overseeing.
One more point in defense of geocachers I'd like to make is that far
from being oblivious to these issues, many of them are prone to
talking them to death. If you would like to get in on discussions
about how to deal with the issues of environmental impact, dealing
with land agencies, getting permission to hide containers, how to
deal with the degenerates within your group, how to combat
misperceptions about your activity, whether or not to organize, and
all of the other issues that infrequently pop up on this mailing
list, you only have to go to the forums at
http://opentopic.groundspeak.com/ or check out the usenet group
alt.rec.geocaching for thousands of posts on these subjects.
Geocachers are not that different from letterboxers, there just
happen to be so many more of them that they attract the attention of
the land managers first.