Sophie Brown loves the countryside and wanted to make it easier for other women of colour to enjoy it, too. So she founded a walking group that gives black women an opportunity to spend time in the great outdoors
Black History Month
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It’s a perfect July afternoon and the sun is blazing down on the Bristol Steppin’ Sistas as they make their way along a circular route outside Pensford, a pretty village on the River Chew. Laughter and chitchat fill the air as the group – 12 women of colour, most of whom are in their 50s – passes under the magnificent arches of Pensford Viaduct (“very Harry Potter”, observes one walker, with a chuckle) and out into fields.
“This is already boosting my happy hormones,” Adelaide tells me as we follow the path close to the river, its reed-lined banks attracting all manner of buzzing creatures. “You don’t think about your life and your issues. You just have a laugh and hear each other’s stories.” The Sistas split into smaller groups as they stroll, twosomes and threesomes catching up since the last time they walked together, or getting acquainted for the first time.
It’s Angela’s first excursion with the group, a chance to break in the splendid pink-and-grey walking boots she bought herself for Christmas as an incentive to return to walking, a hobby she took up during the Covid-19 lockdowns but has since let slide. “I thought this would be a great way to trigger things and get me back into doing lots of walking,” she says, stopping to tie a bootlace. “I liked the thought of finding little nooks and crannies inside of Bristol and the surrounding area.” That’s been Donna’s experience, she tells me, as we walk down a steep hill across a hay field. “The group has enabled me to go to places I would never have gone,” she says, clumps of sweet-smelling hay catching on her trainers as she walks. “Pensford is just outside of Bristol but I wouldn’t have known about it.”
The British countryside, you see, has something of an access problem. While 69% of white adults visit nature at least once a week, according to the Government’s Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environment (MENE) survey, the figure for black and minority ethnic (BME) adults is just 42%. It’s worse still for Asian adults, at 38%. Given that time spent in nature correlates strongly with good health and happiness, thanks to the physical and mental health benefits of fresh air, exercise and exposure to wildlife, inequality of access represents a major challenge for society. Particularly when one considers that a larger proportion of the black population is overweight or obese – and therefore more vulnerable to other health challenges – than other ethnic groups.
“For many ethnic minority people, the countryside simply isn’t a very welcoming place”
The reasons for the disparity of access to nature are multiple and complex. Easiest to delineate are the physical barriers, which are tied to the fact that incidence of poverty is much higher for BME families, with 46% of Less straightforward but no less critical are the cultural barriers, which can depend on the demographic make-up and ingrained attitudes of a particular area, the specifics of a person’s heritage and upbringing, and their previous experiences of visiting the countryside. For many visible ethnic minority (VEM) people, the British countryside simply isn’t a very welcoming place. As Sophie Brown, who founded Bristol Steppin’ Sistas in April 2021 out of a desire to create a space of connection for black women walkers in Bristol, puts it: “There are places where we’re reluctant to go, where we feel uncomfortable.”
She and other members of the group tell me about being verbally abused, denied entry to pubs and generally treated with coldness. Fear of dogs is common in many VEM communities, so the presence of unleashed animals in green spaces can also be off-putting. A question like, “Are you lost?” might seem superficially harmless, but comments like this can have an exclusionary effect, even if well intentioned. It’s not that all interactions with rural people are negative, the Sistas say – probably only around half, or maybe less. The trouble is that you just never know what you’re going to get. “Walking with my white friends is a very different experience,” explains Di. “They are completely comfortable. There aren’t any issues and you see the privilege.”
CAMARADERIE TRUMPS BIGOTRY
Walking with the Steppin’ Sistas doesn’t offer immunity from discrimination – it’s just that the camaraderie of the experience trumps any negativity that can take place. As Di says, shortly before cooling herself down on this sweltering day with a spot of wild swimming in the River Chew: “We’re there to enjoy the countryside and we generate good energy. And hopefully we change a few attitudes when we’re smiling, chatting, having a lovely time.”
CREATING CHANGE
The Steppin’ Sistas is part of a wave of walking groups that have sprung up all over the country in the past few years with the express intention of getting VEM people out enjoying the British countryside. “When I first moved to Bristol, women of colour were probably walking, but I didn’t see any,” says Sophie. “That was a big question everywhere I went: why do I not see any other black women?”
Ornithologist Mya-Rose Craig – who started her popular ‘Birdgirl’ blog aged 11 – had a similar experience when she organised a birding camp in 2015. “I noticed that the only people who had signed up for it were white middle-class boys,” she says. Mya-Rose, who is of dual British-Bangladeshi heritage, took it upon herself to diversify the camp, using word of mouth and VEM community networks in Bristol to bring kids out of the city and “show them the outdoors”. Fighting against the false and pernicious idea that “there are just certain types of people who can’t be engaged in the outdoors”, she then used her platform to start a conversation about access with nature organisations across the UK, a conversation that is still going on today.
Despite being just 14, Mya-Rose then founded Black2Nature, an organisation that runs nature camps for VEM young people and campaigns for equal access to the countryside. For Mya-Rose, access to the countryside isn’t just about “tackling mental health issues and fighting discrimination”, though those are important elements of her work. It’s also a means of engaging people in environmental issues. “Why should people care about these things if they have never even experienced nature or the outdoors? Biodiversity loss means nothing to someone who has never experienced biodiversity,” she says.
REPRESENTATION MATTERS
Groups such as Steppin’ Sistas and Black2Nature are doing great work in facilitating access to the countryside at grassroots level, but it’s important the fight isn’t left to VEM-led organisations alone. Inequality is a national challenge and it’s therefore down to our national rural institutions to step up.
“We need to be creating environments for everyone,” says Eric Heath, a senior project manager at the WWT. “We should be making them as welcome as possible, and organisations need to be looking at themselves and who they are appointing, how they’re run and how they are presenting themselves to the world. Because representation matters.”
Tiger de Souza, people engagement director at the National Trust (NT), agrees. Having VEM people front and centre in marketing materials – one of a number of initiatives designed to make NT sites more welcoming to a broader range of people – not only encourages these groups to get into nature themselves. It also “starts to normalise for us, as a whole society, that you should expect to see people of colour enjoying the outdoors.”
Adelaide, who was “searching for something to identify with” when she came across Steppin’ Sistas two months ago, believes the group has a positive influence on the world around it. “It inspires people. They see the connectivity and might be like, ‘Ooh, shall I join?’.”
Jo Caird is a freelance journalist based between London and the Suffolk coast. She writes for magazines, national newspapers and websites, specialising in wildlife and lifestyle stories with a strong community focus. jocaird.com
BLACK PIONEERS OF NATURAL HISTORY AND CONSERVATION
Born in 1866, one year after slavery was outlawed in the US, Matthew Henson spent 18 years exploring the Arctic and mapping the Greenland ice cap. In 1909, he became the first black person to visit the North Pole.
Marvyne Elisabeth ‘MaVynee’ Betsch was born in 1935, the same year that her grandfather, Abraham Lincoln Lewis, Florida’s first black millionaire, co-founded American Beach, a community hot spot for African-Americans when Jim Crow laws made access to nature difficult. In 1977, Marvyne – aka ‘The Beach Lady’ – fought to protect American Beach from development, and donated huge sums to environmental causes.
Charles Young, born into slavery in Kentucky in 1864, became the first black colonel in the US Army before being appointed the first black National Parks Superintendent. He worked to preserve the extraordinary sequoia trees in California’s Sequoia National Park.
NOW WALK WITH US!
• Muslim Hikers was founded in 2020 to encourage Muslims to get outside, leading large-scale group walks in locations including Snowdonia, the Peak District and Yorkshire Dales.
• Flock Together is a birdwatching collective for people of colour that organises monthly guided birdwatching walks. It has chapters in London, Toronto and New York.
• The Sheffield Environment Movement, which evolved from the 100 Black Men Walk for Health group, runs farm tours, guided walks and more, working with VEM and refugee communities.
• Black Girls Hike was founded in 2019 to provide a safe space for black women to explore the outdoors, hosting walks, activity days and training events.
• We Go Outside Too was set up by Marlon Price in 2020 after losing his son to knife crime. The group provides opportunities for black people in the West Midlands to take part in walking, nature-based learning and holistic workshops.