Nature doesn't "do" Inclusion!

Nature doesn't "do" Inclusion!

In fact, not only does our natural environment not "do" inclusion, but it is anti-inclusion. This thought occurred to me today as I was running the Yacaaba Peninsula at Hawks Nest. The lead photo was the final section of the climb up the peak. It has a 30% grade, rocky, and quite difficult. During this climb I realised that only a small percentage of our population could make it up this climb. That is when the thought, that the natural environment does not do inclusion occurred to me. During the rest of the run the following thoughts coerced into this article.

The built space is the only environment that we have that can be inclusive, because the built space is solely created by humans.

Many years ago when I was in the army I was on a United Nations Human Rights course (yes, the army does things other than train to kill people, we think about things too). Whilst I was on this course, which was rather cerebral, and philosophical I developed this thought. Human beings are flawed. We are flawed because we have evolved, and nothing that evolves can be perfect, hence we are flawed. Because we are flawed everything that we do, by extension, is flawed as well, "The imperfect can not create the perfect". Therefore everything we create in the built form, such as buildings, bridges, structures, are flawed. But the analogy doesn't end there. All our human constructs, such as religions, philosophy, memes are also flawed, ergo, the concept of human rights is also flawed. Here is an example, every person has the right to walk down the street without violence being committed against them, but if I walk up to you and punch you in the face where is your human right. It only exists as a concept, and because humans created it, it is flawed.

You can see where this is going. The concept of inclusion is very new. We have only been speaking about it, and applying it, for maybe a decade. Go back any period and the concept would be alien to people. They would have said "how do you possibly include everyone, in everything". We have hit away at it for a while now and we have managed to get some structures in place, that more or less create inclusion of opportunity for most people. But like I said because we created the concept, it is flawed.

And then there is nature, and to be brutally honest nature just gives us the royal finger when it comes to our concepts, especially ones like inclusion. Unless we build a nice 1:20 pathway through nature it is very NOT INCLUSIVE. Not only could someone in a wheelchair not get up the climb I did today, but if you are disabled in any way, or aged, or unhealthy you wouldn't have gotten to the sign, let alone past it. Basically any inability at all and nature has you done.

And its not just on steep climbs where nature doesn't recognise inclusion. Take any sandy beach, unless we have very special vehicles, or put down mats, you can't go too far on a beach.

So what is the point of this article. It is this. We need to stop going hard at inclusion, and giving ourselves a hard time over it. I am not saying don't do it, because the outcome, when we can do it, is good. Its good when we can make a space inclusive. But most of the parks and recreation space can't be made inclusive, and try as we might, we can't get that trail to fit the concept.

For a species that evolved in nature we have done a bloody good job of forgetting that. It's all around us, and try as we might, we aren't too successful at taming it, and neither should we be. I don't want the natural environment to conform to what we think it should be. We want it to be diverse, and dangerous, and yes, not inclusive.