It’s now just under a month until I leave Adelaide, headed for New Zealand with 8 weeks of adventure ahead of me. To say the excitement is starting to ramp up would be an understatement.
The journey to this point has been nothing short of amazing. The conversations both here at home and as I plan my time abroad have been inspiring, insightful and thought-provoking. So many people, from many different backgrounds, with a diversity of perspectives, but all sharing one common interest… the outdoors. The scale of what I’m doing has often lead me to think about why the outdoors, and trails specifically are so important.
It's my experience that as human beings, we are born to be outdoors. Being surrounded by in my case, the ‘Australian Bush’... calms us, grounds us, and deeply enriches us in a way that no artificial setting is able to (not even a good cafe!).
But here’s where I get passionate. I’m watching our young people grow up in a world without meaningful outdoor experiences, a world where the ‘iPhone’ is winning and ultimately, this deficiency in nature is only going to destructively affect us all.
Our young people deserve outdoor experiences, where they can develop their physical, mental, social and spiritual health, learn about themselves and their resilience, courage and ability, appreciate sustainability, beauty and solitude and recognise Aboriginal culture and traditions as the first owners of the land, both past and present.
Why does the outdoors matter?
Community
The term ‘community’ has become confusing, it’s being used as a one size fits all phrase for anything that has to do with a group of people or things, from the tangible to the abstract. It’s being picked up and thrown around recklessly by marketers, brands, entrepreneurs, event organizers, social media managers, the list goes on… at some point, we lost sight of what ‘real’ community is.
When I think about community, I think about real humans with real lives, real stories, real hopes, real dreams. That interest, respect and care for each other is the absolute core of a community.
Communities bring random strangers together to form relationships with each other. Ultimately, they should give a damn about each other more than the average person they meet on the street. Because when people care about each other, they develop trust. And trust unlocks collaboration, sharing, support, hope, safety and much more.
Communities also address one of the most fundamental human needs: the desire to be loved, no one aspires to be lonely and many want to know that we belong somewhere. Communities are places to belong, be accepted for who each person authentically is and gain a sense of shared identity. Communities bring people together and install confidence that an individuals own life is bigger than just themselves.
The outdoors comes into play for communities, because it affords people a medium in which they can be established. The outdoors easily brings people together - to walk, picnic, ride, explore, run, relax. The outdoors is adaptive - whether it be the reason to bring people together, the way in which people come together, the location for which people come together or even the distraction for people to come together.
The outdoors can play the role for everything I’ve mentioned above (and further points mentioned below). The outdoors is real, it fosters care, respect and interest, enabling strangers to come together, empowering exploration and adventure, allowing time and space for trust to develop, creating opportunities for collaboration, sharing, support, hope, safety, and reinforcing the value of love and appreciation.
Experiential Learning
Whether the outdoors is creating a space for communities or individuals, it defaults to then enabling an opportunity for experiential learning. Fundamentally, experiential learning is facing a challenge and/or experience, which is followed by reflection leading to learning and growth. A person(s) improved knowledge results from the combination of grasping their experience and transforming it.
I may be biased, but in my opinion, the outdoors is the best place for education to take place. It affords us the greatest (and largest) classroom, filled with challenges, opportunities, diversity and new concepts, where we can all, no matter our age, ability, gender or background develop and continue to grow into the best person we can be.
It’s as if the outdoors was designed with both personal and communal characteristics in mind, while also not forgetting the employability traits that the work force asks of us. Grit, resilience, initiative, curiosity, awe, independence, self-esteem, creativity, appreciation…
The outdoors forces us to be practical, enabling us to be ourselves, to think on our feet, reminding us to care for others, to stay alert to our surrounds, ensuring we leave things better than we find them and to care for what matters most.
Sustainability
If there is one thing we all learn in life, it’s that everything must be cared for. While it would be easy to make a valid sustainability argument based on a declining natural environment due to climate change, over-population, farming and more, what’s actually important I believe are the solutions, more than the consequences of sustainability debates.
Sustainability shouldn’t just be something that is raised in an outdoors, natural or environment discussion, it should be a concept that is forefront for every person in every area of life. We owe it to generations who worked hard for our future as much as we owe it to the generations in the future to ensure we do everything we can to allow all elements of our lives to remain sustainable.
Arguably, more than anywhere else, sustainability practices in natural outdoor landscapes should be taken seriously. As individuals and communities, we should be involving each other in the maintenance of factors and practices that contribute to the quality of our shared environment, with a focus its long term survival. If we can’t value and/or appreciate the need for sustainability, we have no right to enjoy all the other benefits that the outdoors can offer us.
Enterprise
As discussed above, sustainability extends well beyond nature and the environment to matters including people themselves and how they go about their daily lives. A sustainable, thriving outdoors includes people and it includes enterprise.
The term ‘Enterprise’ can mean many different things… First, it’s a human skill, with an eagerness to do something new and clever, despite any risks. Secondly, it’s a business with the obvious aim of making a profit. Lastly, it can be viewed as a difficult or important challenge. All valid definitions in the context of the outdoors.
A sustainable outdoors, is one that is supported by a stable economy of diverse sustainable enterprises.
I admire young people today for a variety of reasons, none more so than their ability to disregard fear, risk and barriers when it is sitting right there in front of them. Small to medium enterprises are the backbone of not just our, but many nations economies and young people are exploring their enterprising options in this space more than ever. New ideas, concepts, offerings, services…
In my opinion though, this same enterprising spirit is yet to be translated to the outdoors at the scale or urgency of what is possible. Sure, there are some (and huge credit to those who have) who have seized the chance and leveraged an enterprising idea of the foundation of the outdoors community.
While other factors must be considered, our future economy must involve broad opportunities for enterprises to exist in the outdoors. Nature tourism, outdoor education, recreation, food and drink experiences, wilderness therapy, venues and hospitality… the list goes on. Our current and future generations deserve the opportunity and support of their enterprise thriving in the outdoors.
Wellbeing
The unfortunate reality is that almost half of all Australians are diagnosed with a mental health condition at some point during their life. The numbers of those who experience physical health conditions is higher. The outdoors can often be appreciated as place of exploration, adventure, risk-taking and learning. Importantly, it can also be a place for self-discovery, healing, respite and rehabilitation.
The restorative effects of the outdoors, notably ‘green spaces’ is well documented. A simple Google search will provide a phenomenal amount of reading and watching to support this. What’s so valuable is that the role the outdoors can play in reducing stress, allowing people time and space to recover, assisting in recovery from depression and anxiety, aiding physical rehabilitation, and promoting a sense of wellbeing can’t be ignored.
Wellbeing for me is the critical ingredient to the outdoors being so important to so many people. Wellbeing is not just the absence of disease or illness, rather it is a complex combination of a person's physical, mental, emotional and social health factors. The outdoors is important because through its simple settings, it can assist us all in resolving some of our most complex challenges.
Exploration & Adventure
Not only are many of us struggling with our wellbeing, we’re also depriving ourselves of the right we all deserve to go explore beyond our daily surroundings and allow ourselves to open up to the adventure that is happening in the moment.
Our lives are jam-packed with routines, structures, commitments and obligations, none of which is a bad thing. But if we’re choosing to opt-in to the same old, same old on a daily basis, aren’t we also at risk of forgetting to live of life?
In abandoning a sense of new experiences and adventure, we’re also at risk of abandoning ourselves. Adventure is about embracing the unexpected, venturing risk, letting things come to us. We take a break from the endless planning, acquiring and polishing of life and just allow ourselves to see what happens.
The ‘spirit of adventure’ is the continual willingness to meet and be moved by the unexpected forces and possibilities in life. It’s about allowing yourself to live for the moment that you can’t put into words. And there is no better setting to do this, than in the outdoors.
Placemaking
To end with a similar point to the one I began with is the often undiscussed community approach of placemaking. You may be familiar with the placemaking concept, it’s both an overarching idea and a hands-on approach for improving an area, space, region or landscape. The foundation of its design is to inspire people to collectively reimagine and reinvent public spaces as the heart of every community.
Placemaking is relevant to the outdoors and trails specifically, because it strengthens the connection between people and these places they share. It is a collaborative process by which we can shape our public realm in order to maximise shared value.
Placemaking is about promoting better and sustainable design, facilitating creative ideas and opportunities for use and paying particular attention to the physical, cultural, and social values that not only define, but develop a place.
Critical to its success is community-based participation, that capitalises on a local community's assets, inspiration, and potential. Placemaking is fundamentally about creating quality public spaces that contribute to people's health, happiness, and wellbeing.
Placemaking isn’t easy. It can involve many groups of people… community, government, private, commercial and not for profit sectors. Furthermore it then involves many sectors – environment, health, primary industries, Aboriginal affairs, social inclusion, education and urban planning to name a few. However, what placemaking has down is provide a blueprint for how outdoor spaces and trails can be implemented, maintained and managed.
Great ideas aren’t meant to be easy, but they are capable of outlaying generational change. The idea of placemaking is one of my big hopes for outdoor spaces and trails going forward. One we’re all groups, industries, sectors… can focus on what brings us together in the first instance, acknowledge that there may be room for us all to exist and then seek about doing something seriously meaningful as a result.
Less than a month to go...
Conversations and Research right up until departure!
Since my last update, I’ve been thoroughly grateful for the continued opportunities to meet and/or chat with many people, from different sectors. This includes government, representative bodies, trail builders, clubs, commercial operators and others who are in some way connected to the outdoor industry who have generously given of their time, opinions and perspectives.
The latest people I’ve been grateful to connect with include:
Grant Pelton - Department of Environment & Water
Will Rischbieth - WillRide
Christian Haag - BikeSA
Anthea, Nick, Justin, Louise - Office for Recreation, Sport and Racing
Michael McCarthy - SA Water
Sarah Sutter - Nature Play SA
Matt Ackland - Department of Environment & Water
Galeo Saintz - World Trails Network
Keen to get involved?
Right up until I depart, I’ll be looking to continue having conversations with anyone who feels that they or someone they know may have a question to pose, opinion to share or perspective to consider.
I’m especially excited to speak with anyone in roles of leadership or influence within the outdoors community to listen, learn and understand challenges, opportunities and/or strategies which you’re currently working through.
Furthermore, if you have any suggestions or recommendations of people and/or organisations who may in some way be connected to my Churchill Fellowship project that I might be able to connect with while overseas, I would love to hear from you.
I appreciate your interest in my Churchill Fellowship and look forward to sharing my next update prior to departure in June.
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