All the Elements at the National Parks’ conference 2022
National Parks are large areas of land that are protected by law for the benefit of the nation. There are 15 of them across the UK each one has been designated as a protected landscape. Each National Park is managed by its own Authority under National Parks UK.
The National Parks’ Conference brought together over 120 National Park Authority Chairs, chief executives, Members, senior staff and national partners to discuss the future of UK National Parks.
You can read the conference report, including a Summary by Keme Nzerem here.
The conference theme, ‘What does the nation need from National Parks today?’ provided a chance to consider the role of National Parks in response to nature, climate change, diversity and inclusion, and “green” economic growth. Sarah Bryan, Chief Executive of Exmoor National Park Authority said: “It was inspiring to hear from so many incredible and innovative speakers, to share our experiences with each other and those we met out and about on Exmoor. At this incredibly difficult time for the country, it was good to reflect and remind ourselves of the value of our National Parks - for people and nature”
As part of the event All the Elements founder Soraya Abdel-Hadi was invited to speak. Sharing about learnings from the All the Elements community, the importance of intersectionality, and how we need a National Park service that represents the nation.
Listen to the full Audio recording of Soraya’s talk here, a transcript is provided below.
Transcript
0:20
So, for those of you who don't know, my name is Soraya and I'm founder of All the Elements.
0:28
All the Elements is a nonprofit network for everyone creating change on diversity in the UK outdoors. In our network, we have individuals who might be our leaders, they might be activists, they can be researchers. They could be individuals running community groups, or they might be working at larger organisations like many of you are we have representatives from the YHA from AONBs. From outdoor media organisations, and basically across the whole sector. We have people working on different activities, which can include different sports that also can be conservation and environment. So broad.
1:14
A common theme, though, across many of those in our network is feeling very separate from the mainstream narrative. So it's probably not going to come as any great surprise when I think about what the nation needs from national parks today. My mind goes to diversity, inclusion, and engagement. And this touches on things that Julia was talking about earlier in terms of health and well being and also about how if we connect more people with the outdoors, they're more likely to want to support and protect those environments.
1:51
So the people in my network are amazing. And I would love to see how national parks could get more of these wonderful people involved. Over the weekend. We ran an event with Natural England and YHA and brought together 100 of these leaders working in the space. And I was still buzzing from it now I wish I could bring them all with me.
2:18
You're going to expect me to talk about how we need to take down the barriers to access and I am going to talk about that at least to start with. I refer to these as hard and soft barriers, which is not the technical term for them. But it doesn't really matter what we call them. It's just an easy way of separating them so that we can talk about them and also so we can hopefully take action on them. Hard barriers are things you'll be really familiar with, like living far away from national parks without transport, not having the right kit, having limited finances to be able to tackle either of those things. Not having cars or gates. We can take wheelchairs, not having easily readable and understandable signs, or having family or carrying responsibilities that prevent you from travelling any distance. Everyone in this room would have come up against at least one hard barrier at some point. In their life. If you haven't yet, lucky you, but I'm afraid it's likely you will at some point.
3:26
Soft barriers are things like outdoor knowledge buy your walking boots a size up, leaving gates as you find them, not trampling all over vulnerable areas during the bad nesting season. checking the weather before you head out, how to read a map, even one on your phone even though I know that's controversial. If you're in this room, you probably didn't think twice about these types of things. But can you think back to when you learn these skills? How old were you? Who taught you? Do you even remember? Soft barriers are also the things that can make people feel uncomfortable when heading into national parks. And I'm not talking about rain or blisters, midges. I'm talking about the questions some of our nation ask themselves. Will it be safe to hold my partner's hand if we're both men? Will I be stared at as a black person? When I see anyone who looks like me? will my wheelchair get stuck on the path? Will there be somewhere I can pray or change? These types of soft barriers are personal and often hard to talk about with others unless I've experienced especially in a society where we're used to these concerns being dismissed, minimise or even rationalised even in the face of evidence of these fears are justified.
5:00
Just think of the push back on some of the posts from community groups on social media I was tagged in a post by Muslim hikers and personally experienced the torrent of abuse as the tools to troll the trolls. The trolls piled in hundreds and let's not forget the unfurling of the white lives matter banner on Ben Nevis last year. And then we could talk about the erosion of trans rights by some of our governing bodies in the sporting areas. Each individual underrepresented in the outdoors can face more than one barrier under both hard and soft categories.
5:44
This is the essence of how intersectionality works, a buzzword! It's an important one though. Intersectionality is a term created by American civil rights advocate and scholar Kimberly Crenshaw in 1989, I believe I didn't actually put that in my notes, but it's in its definition is the study of overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination or discrimination. Another way our different identities raise different barriers. As a woman of colour, I experience barriers because I am not white. Also because I am female, and then other barriers based on other areas of my identity. When looking at what the nation wants from national parks in tackling all barriers. I think it comes down to that concept of intersectionality. And an approach that encompasses intersectionality also saves time and money when it's done right.
6:54
With those hard barriers, it can be quite easy to see how this works. providing accessible paths helps with wheelchairs push chairs and those who are less confident because it's a set path or less fit and not confident on uneven ground. Choosing the words used on signs carefully helps those with visual impairments and also those with English as a second, third, or fouth language. Public transport provision as discussed by Billy and Logan already helps those with limited finances, and also those who live in cities who don't have a car. And if it's accessible, it also helps those who are physically disabled and it also helps the planet too if you choose the right option. As Toby mentioned, my background is in sustainability. So this is never far from my mind.
6:50
I'm sure you can all think of lots of examples, perhaps even of some unexpected consequences from when you've implemented things in the past. I know that a lot of you are already working on this from the work that All the elements did on the National Parks UK report. Often the work on these hard barriers is limited by man or woman power. Or budgets, or conflicting priorities and I'm not a funding body. Sorry. So my impact in this area is limited. All I can say is that more work needs to be put in to figure out how to prioritise this in strategy and in budgeting. And I've written down here Revere Heritage Fund.
8:32
Funding bodies need to make sure that DNI is in the reporting requirements but you can make it easier by making sure you're doing the background work. yourselves now. The fact that work on hard barriers can also be stopped by a hard barrier of money is a little ironic, I'm sure you'll agree. Where I've seen less progress or discussion is on the soft barriers. The personal thoughts and feelings created by less tangible but very real factors. The reality is that you can take down all the hard barriers that you want, but without progress on the soft barriers people still won't engage.
9:10
Training and Education is key here. But doing this in an unpatronising and engaging way is so important. If I personally have to read another article about teaching ethnic minorities about using the countryside but focusing on litter I think my might lose my mind. If you've grown up here in the UK, you know not to drop litter and no amount of campaigning will help you if you're still doing it. And it's worth noting a lot of us did grow up here in the UK. This approach comes from or can come from a deep place of othering "brown people are foreign and don't know about bins" what will actually help Robbins what would help even more is probably companies not producing things in litter in the first place.
10:03
This is just one example of getting the tone wrong and is a pet peeve of mine. But let's talk about how training can be used to tackle the soft barriers. Many of them can be alleviated by the creation of safe spaces for training, education and outdoor experiences for very specific ones. Now maybe you've heard the term safe spaces and wondered what it actually means and what it actually takes to create them. It wasn't so long ago that I have the same questions. And it's not just about gathering people. Central to safety is a deeper level of understanding held communally by the group including and this is important. The leader or the expert in that group. Safe spaces can be created when outdoor activities or outdoor training can be delivered and led by members of that community or underrepresented group for their own community. Safe spaces are far more easily created this way. Doing this as an outsider is not impossible, but you need to take the time to build trust and also fully understand the challenges and nuances of that community.
11:15
I've been in plenty of conversations where I've witnessed authority figures, group leaders, mediators, even friends miss a key topic or answer a question in a way that's dismissive or inappropriate. When this happens, it's immediately obvious to the group and it is no longer a safe space. It's now awkward and uncomfortable. This isn't intentional as humans we often don't know what we don't know. This is just what happens when you don't have lived experience. I see safe spaces being created, grown and utilised successfully every day in the All the Elements community. But the leaders in this space for the most part, work separately from the established sector. These community groups represent the broader nation who aren't your usual National Park user. And I guarantee that they don't want to be separate. They just want an outdoors as safe welcoming, attractive and accessible to all. And the key to this is intersectionality.
12:23
The nation needs a world my comms are designed by people who know when the tone is off for the audience, where the conversation is not about how do we get you here? That is shifted to how can we get more people like us here. And I'm not saying throw out your whole team and start again. We're all intersectional gender, sexuality, skin colour, religion, ethnicity, visible and invisible disabilities, body type, age, you all have valid lived experiences, and can provide the foundation to create this new intersectional version of our national parks. But for those of us not represented in any number inside the gates, there's only so much we can do from over here. There's only so much we can do in 10 minute talks at annual events. What does the nation need from national parks? It needs a National Park service that represents the nation. Maybe invite us in? Thank you. [Aplause]
