Outdoor Equity: How can we achieve it if we can't even define it
Part Five: Why is outdoor equity important and what can be the motivations behind the movement?
This is one article of a multi-part series about exploring outdoor equity: the lack of shared definition, how outdoor equity is currently described and associated consistencies and inconsistencies, who can benefit from outdoor equity, how we can achieve outdoor equity and where our efforts can be focused, why outdoor equity is important and the motivations behind the movement, and a new definition rooted in justice and liberation. Please feel free to read or reread Part One: Why is shared understanding important and why is outdoor equity important to me?, Part Two: How do people currently define outdoor equity?, Part Three: Who can benefit from outdoor equity?, and Part Four: How can we achieve outdoor equity and where can efforts be focused? before reading this post.
Over the years, I’ve been part of many conversations about outdoor equity and one of the most fun, exciting, and creative questions to explore is “Why is outdoor equity important to you?” Yet, this question is often skipped and assumptions are made that everyone is thinking and feeling the same things. When movements explore a shared understanding of why something is important, a much bigger impact can be seen because individual motivations multiply into a collective motivation and that shared desire can fuel big change.
Many statements are shared about the importance of outdoor equity like the disproportionate lack of outdoor access for communities of color and poor and working class and that outdoor access is a human right. And, what if we looked deeper? Why are the outdoors important? Why should we ensure that everyone has access to the outdoors?
What if we all took a minute to slow down, ask one another, and listen to why the outdoors is important to each of us?
Why is time spent outdoors important to me?
A common misconception I’ve faced many times in my career is the assumption that I grew up recreating outdoors because I live in this white body and grew up in a middle class family. I cannot count the number of times I have been standing among my peers and everyone just assumed that I have lived a life outdoors since birth. My personal commitment to outdoor equity did not come from having equitable experiences in the outdoors myself as a child. I grew up in a mostly urban area and although I spent time out-of-doors, I had no idea what outdoor recreation, environmental education, or land-based healing were. I discovered nature in the sidewalk cracks and those early connections blossomed over time to create a lifelong connection with nature and the land. It’s true that I’ve always loved being outside, but I did not grow up camping and my love of hiking and other outdoor recreation endeavours came when I was an adult. Sometimes we fight the hardest for people to get access to things because we didn’t have access to them ourselves.
In terms of some of my other identities, outdoor equity is important because I have lived being excluded from spaces. As someone born in a female body, I faced many years of being the only female wildlife biologist in certain spaces. Oh, the stories I have about what it was like to work among all men and how it was assumed that I was less capable and was there to cook for them! These stories could fill many books. In my body, I feel what it is like to be queer and often still excluded from conversations, including outdoor equity conversations. Even at this point in time, I have yet to experience seeing queer women represented in things like ads for the outdoor industry; I’ve seen gay men represented, but that’s not the same thing. And as a person born in a white body, people have voiced assumptions that I have had access to things that I haven’t had access to. I am, too frequently, a person with these identities who is still excluded from even being invited into the room.
And yet, I live in a body filled with complexity. I know what it is like to be excluded, but I also know what it is like to have access to things from unearned privilege. Even though I did not recreate outdoors till I was pretty much an adult, I did have access to parks and green spaces in the town I grew up in. There was even a large field at my elementary school that allowed for lots of imagination for myself and my friends. This even included a hill that was great for rolling down or for sledding when enough snow fell. In my mind, it’s still a huge hill that provided many hours of fun even though in reality it was relatively small. To be a child again and feel the world in its great immenseness!
Through all of my experiences outdoors, I know I feel most fully human and most connected to the land and to others when I am outside and believe that everyone deserves to have the right to have the same experiences.
Digging even deeper, why is being outdoors important?
From listening to so many explore this topic, I’ve consistently heard three main reasons why spending time outdoors is important:
1) Benefits related to health and wellness - there are many studies that demonstrate that spending time in fresh air and out-of-doors leads to better physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual health and wellbeing.
2) The opportunity to experience transformation - transformation is often a word linked with outdoor equity and personal transformation, because to live an even more fulfilling and meaningful life can definitely come from spending time outdoors. People like me, who are immersed in the work of embodied social justice, also see the direct link between building connections to self, others, and the land by being outdoors and leaning into the journey of embodied transformation. Connecting with the land, nature, outdoors, air, earth - whatever word you choose is a key piece of this kind of transformation.
3) Developing a conservation ethic - much of the messaging connected with outdoor equity points to an increased awareness along with actions connected to conserving the planet. A conservation ethic can include individual and collective action connected to many things like land, water, air, species, and ecosystems. In the end, it’s the recognition that we as humans are a part of, and rely on, myriad natural systems and we need to find balance and ways to preserve these systems if we want to continue to survive on this planet.
From my own experience working with over 25,000 youth across New Mexico, I have heard all of these benefits expressed when people have had the opportunity to have regular exposure to the outdoors; it’s the regular exposure that’s allowed people to develop their own meaningful connections with the outdoors. In other words, it’s a big ask to expect people to explore a connection with a one-time experience, but exposure over time can lead to developing and deepening connections that lead to multiple positive benefits.
In particular, I want to dig in more into the benefit of “developing a conservation ethic”. Too frequently, I hear people saying with certainty that any time outdoors, especially through outdoor recreation, leads to conservation. This is a myth. Outdoor recreation alone cannot lead to conservation and it’s time we stop perpetuating the myth that there is either a correlation (one necessarily affects the other) or causation (doing one necessarily results in the other) with these two things.
In my article Outdoor Recreation Does Not Lead to Conservation, “People recreate outdoors for many reasons: Some people seek connection with the land or a spiritual connection, or even go to the wilderness to better understand themselves. Some people see the outdoors as a form of entertainment, or a place to get an adrenaline high. There are many reasons, and some of those motivations will lead to an increased appreciation and connection with the land that can lead to increased environmental concern and conservation action. For those for whom the outdoors is there to use and take, it will not lead to more conservation and will, in fact, lead to more environmental degradation.” Let us stop oversimplifying and perpetuating myths that have been disproven.
If we’re going to highlight any of these benefits of outdoor equity, then we need to ensure that outdoor experiences are reflective of the conditions that lead to these benefits. At the end of the day, I believe many of us want to see these benefits for our youth, families, and all people. Regular access to the outdoors, especially through opportunities like culturally-relevant and accessible outdoor learning, can lead to individuals developing a conservation ethic and gaining from other benefits from time spent outside.
I’d like to add one more benefit to outdoor equity that is almost never mentioned - the benefits to communities. Too often in the U.S., we focus on individuals and how things impact individuals and I believe there is a case to be made for healthier communities from investing in outdoor equity. If we can view outdoor equity as a way to provide regular opportunities for people to be outdoors in their communities, then we can think about how to invest at a community level for larger impact. Imagine neighborhoods and communities filled with outdoor spaces like parks, schoolyards that double as parks during out-of-school-time hours, and other green spaces that are reflective and meaningful to those communities. If we began thinking beyond the individual level, I believe the benefits would be even greater than what we can even imagine today.
Thank you for reading and please feel free to share this with others who may resonate with thinking more deeply about outdoor equity.