Mid Sweden University

Access to outdoor leisure activities is central to supporting active and healthy ageing. To address the lack of research on services supporting continued engagement, this study examines how public, voluntary and private sectors provide outdoor recreation services for older adults. This study uses a qualitative research design to draw on interviews, a workshop, and field observations conducted in a Swedish municipality. Grounded in the capability approach and theories of active ageing, the study contributes to a better understanding of how opportunities for participation in outdoor recreation are shaped by service provision and structural conditions. This study identifies positive examples of outdoor recreation services but also gaps, characterised by the level of challenge in the activities that stakeholders in different sectors provide. Whereas activities provided by public senior centres were conducted in accessible terrain and inclusive for people with functional limitations, opportunities for slightly more challenging activities were lacking. Activities provided by voluntary organisations offered opportunities for more challenge, with the risk of exclusion for those with mobility limitations. The private sector, despite interest, did not actively provide outdoor recreation for older adults due to demand uncertainties. A structural barrier across all sectors was limited access to transport. This study contributes to the literature by identifying the need for tiered outdoor recreation programs, improved transport solutions, and cross-sector collaboration. While situated in a Swedish context, the findings offer conceptual and practical relevance for broader efforts to provide diversity in outdoor recreation services that support active ageing for different groups. A more coordinated, inclusive approach through policy and resource allocation across sectors is essential to support outdoor engagement in ageing populations.

Chapter highlights

– Discusses the significance of nature to human wellbeing from the perspective of older adults and their continuous engagement with outdoor experiences.

– Highlights the need for accessible nature close to home and how communities can support sustained nature-based experiences and active ageing.

– Collaboration across sectors is essential to address knowledge exchange, cost-sharing, and provision of accessible nature-based activities.

– Incorporating the diverse preferences and needs of citizens into planning processes is essential for achieving age-friendly green spaces and recreational areas.

Chapter highlights

– Empirically examines digital information as an enabler for improving accessibility to nature environments.

– Identifies and addresses communication improvements for accessible nature-based activities for people with disabilities.

– Reveals that detailed, accurate, and reliable online information is crucial for planning and participating in nature-based tourism and outdoor recreation.

– Managers show a weak understanding of holistic travel experiences, as details on transport, outdoor activities, and facilities are often absent.

– Accessibility is enhanced through collaboration between interest organisations, companies, and the public sector.

Spending time in nature has many benefits for older individuals' health and well-being and is often closely tied to personal identity. As individuals age, their activity spaces typically become more geographically limited to areas near their homes. Therefore, having access to nearby nature environments is crucial for maintaining their habits of engaging with nature. This study employs a mixed-methods approach, combining survey data and interviews with older adults in two Swedish municipalities, to explore what proximity to nature means to them and how it influences their relocation decisions. The findings highlight that the relationship between individuals and nature environments can be lifelong and deeply embedded in their identity; something they wish to preserve in later life. However, various individual and societal constraints can complicate the ability to prioritise proximity to nature when moving. We argue that access to nature for older adults should be more prominently considered in policy planning, as it is currently underrepresented. It is essential to provide housing options with nature nearby, whether individuals choose to age in place or relocate to improve access to other amenities.

Physical and social barriers have long hindered people with disabilities from full participation in outdoor recreation and nature experiences. As spending time in nature, where protected areas constitute an important arena for nature engagement, is increasingly connected to improved health and well-being, there is a need for nature activities and experiences in protected areas to become more accessible and inclusive. However, the provision of accessible protected areas for outdoor recreation and nature activities poses challenges for planners and managers of such areas, as there are elements of contradiction between interests of accessibility and nature conservation. This qualitative study examines how providers of nature experiences and outdoor activities, such as governmental authorities, outdoor recreation associations and nature-based tourism entrepreneurs in Sweden view and practice the balancing of these interests, through perspectives of the social construction of nature, inclusion, and collaboration. Findings indicate that interests in nature conservation generally take precedence over measures of accessibility and that such initiatives are directed to a few, designated areas. There is also an apparent lack of knowledge about how people with disabilities wish to engage with nature, which hinders full access to nature. It is therefore important to include people with disabilities in the process of developing accessibility in protected areas and promote collaboration between stakeholders, to avoid excluding decisions. The study concludes by stating the necessity to challenge the viewpoint of accessible infrastructure for outdoor activities in protected areas as ‘ruining’ the nature experience, in order for access to nature to become a truly democratic right.

Despite the growing popularity of outdoor recreation, nature is not equally accessible to everyone. In the case of persons with disabilities, access to nature remains a largely under-researched area, especially in terms of the role of private and public providers of products and facilities for a diverse range of visitors. This study investigates the challenges and opportunities for developing inclusive forms of accessible nature-based tourism in three different natural settings in Sweden. By focusing on the supply-side of nature-based tourism, we examine views and practices in providing inclusive activities and environments. Despite growing stakeholder interest in accessible nature-based tourism, our findings reveal several challenges, including limited knowledge about the consumers, lack of financial resources and long-term planning, and the absence of a holistic accessibility perspective. We discuss these challenges and propose that they can be collectively met through increased stakeholder collaboration for creating accessible nature-based tourism.

Conclusions: 

• Older adults are at high risk for disengagement from outdoor recreation

• Suggested core features to promote outdoor recreation: person-centeredness, promoting functioning, addressing self-ageism, providing environmental support, promoting subjective mobility needs, adaptation (new ways to engage)

• Opportunities for sectors and private companies: potential to develop and expand services to an increasingly larger group of older people 

Background: The advantages of sustained health and well-being in old age may be reduced by disengagement from outdoor recreation. We present a rationale for how the public sector, the third sector and private companies can promote continued engagement in outdoor recreation.

Methods:  Empirical data from (i) older adults through a quantitative survey and semi-structured interviews, (ii) sector representatives and private companies through semi-structured interviews, (iii) older adults, sector representatives and private companies through a workshop. 

Results: Outdoor recreation was considered important to maintain physical fitness, psychological wellbeing, identity, and daily routines. More than 50 percent of survey respondents had disengaged from activities previously performed due to health decline, too demanding activities, or social loss. Continued engagement was considered important but challenging. To improve services for different needs and preferences in outdoor recreation, sector representatives and private companies highlighted: Knowledge and support on how to design accessible activities and natural environments and increased financial resources for accessibility.  

Nature experiences and participation in nature-based activities are increasingly recognised as beneficial to public and individual health, yet in most societies, the ability for people to take advantage of opportunities to acquire these benefits is unequal. Social constructs such as gender and disability, as well as levels of income and education, influence to what extent individuals can engage with nature, and there is growing concern over the increased disconnectedness from nature in urbanised societies. Nature-based tourism and outdoor recreation is argued to have an important role to play in rekindling this relationship between humans and the natural environment. Based on this, there is a real need to examine people’s access to nature through nature-based tourism. 

This thesis studies access to nature through the four perspectives of infrastructure, conflicts of interests, exclusion and collaboration, in order to broaden the scope of how nature-based tourism can support equal opportunities to nature experiences. The included papers employ mixed-methods research from three case study areas in Sweden, with a particular focus on the southern Jämtland mountains. The four perspectives that constitute the framework of this thesis are expressed in each of the papers. Paper I reviews research on infrastructure for touristic purposes, and lays the foundation for paper II, where I examine the role of recreational trails in handling issues of collaboration and conflicts of interests in a mountain area affected by land-use conflicts. Paper III investigates exclusion from outdoor recreation activities from a gender perspective, and paper IV researches how accessible infrastructure, intended for people with disabilities to access protected areas, can give rise to conflicts between the competing interests of nature conservation and accessibility. Together, the findings in these papers suggest that although equal access to nature is desirable, there is a need to problematize the many layers of the concept. Improved access for one group can reduce access for another, and facilitated access to natural areas can cause problems of crowding and environmental degradation. This paradox requires further highlighting. Moreover, I argue that the call for a reconnection with nature to foster environmental responsibility, and to counteract declining public health in societies is exclusive, as constructs of gender and disability give unequal prerequisites to nature engagement. Despite this, access to nature is a democratic right, so although there is a need to recognise the complexity of access, I advocate for collaborative efforts to enhance access to nature for marginalised groups, and to consider aspects of access in land-use conflict management.