"There is no such thing as barrier-free nature": Information, Trust, and Self-Determined Access to Nature

Abstract

Access to nature for people with mobility disabilities is often framed in terms of physical barriers, assistive devices, or labels attached to routes. Yet, such framings overlook the process through which people assess, prepare, and negotiate outdoor access in practice. In this paper, we illustrate that access to nature is an ongoing, context-dependent process of individual judgment and adaptation. Drawing on semi-structured expert interviews with twelve experienced outdoor enthusiasts with mobility disabilities, all of whom used wheelchairs in daily life and drew on diverse outdoor mobility aids, and reflexive thematic analysis, we examine how access decisions are made in real-world contexts. We find that the ability to participate meaningfully in nature outings was contingent on individual and variable factors including participants’ bodies, mobility aids, route conditions, assistance, personal energy levels or willingness to take risks as well as specific goals. Furthermore, participants had to manage information in a considerable effort including researching, comparing, interpreting and verifying route information well in advance of any excursion. The information provided by peers was considered as particularly valuable as it is grounded in lived experience and often more accurate and trustworthy than official accessibility descriptions. Technological and human support were perceived as both enabling and constraining; they are most helpful when they function as backup infrastructures that preserve autonomy rather than replacing it. Our contributions lie in providing an empirical understanding of nature access as a negotiated process, reframing the concept of access to nature through the lens of access to high-quality information and deriving design implications for systems that encourage trust, address uncertainty and promote self-determined decision-making instead of relying on static labels or solution-driven approaches.