I tend to think of it in terms of “footprints”. We don’t exist in the world in a bubble… we all have an impact on it whether we realise/admit it or not. So I tend to think along the lines of “what is it that I am trying to achieve here, what footprints am I leaving in the process, are there ways to minimise/avoid the footprints”. In other words, how can I achieve what it is I am trying to achieve, and leave the location as much as it was before I started…
Often the “damage” is incidental to the conscious action we are taking… while stopping to take that photograph of the bird that flies away because we stopped, how many insects did we trample in the grass by the track while we were moving into position to get that photo, over and above the bugs that were squished along the track itself. I watch the fantails that follow me around the local arboretum, they are not following me because they want to say hi, they are after the springtails that leap up from the ground as my steps create vibration and the flies disturbed from the grasses nearby. The air compressed out of the soil I walk on causes small worms to surface briefly to be picked up by other birds some time after I have gone by, the fungal spores I pick up brushing against plants are spread to other plants as I move around in the environment. Insects will land on my clothes and then be squished when my satchel slides around on my hip. And then there is that mosquito I instinctively squished when I felt the sharp bite on the back of my knee (knee-pit?).