About accessibility
Guidelines and Check-List with accessibility criteria To enhance the understanding, skills and knowledge of municipalities, entrepreneurs and other administrators of nature territories on accesibility and provision of tourism products and services, NGO Apeirons together with Kurzeme Planning Region have developed the Guidelines and the Accessibility Check-list for Nature Trails, which lists the key criteria to […]
Guidelines and Check-List with accessibility criteria
To enhance the understanding, skills and knowledge of municipalities, entrepreneurs and other administrators of nature territories on accesibility and provision of tourism products and services, NGO Apeirons together with Kurzeme Planning Region have developed the Guidelines and the Accessibility Check-list for Nature Trails, which lists the key criteria to determine the compliance of the trail with accessibility requirements.
The Guidelines illustrate the key accessibility principles, whereas the Check-list (CL) details the most important questions, grouped under several sections, to assess whether the nature trail, its amenities and related infrastructure are accessible to people with movement, visual, hearing and cognitive impairment, seniors, parents travelling with baby-strollers etc. The CL also provides for the recommended values and limits, such as the minimum width of the trail, the maximum slope etc.
We hope that the two documents shall serve as a handy guide to all trail administrators (municipalities, nature protected areas’ administrations, private owners etc.) in order to determine the trail’s compliance with the minimum recommended accessibility requirements, as well as facilitate further work on adaptation of trails, by identifying the weak points and stimulating a step by step adjustment of the trail infrastructure.
The guidelines have been developed with the support of the Interreg V-A Latvia-Lithuania Programme 2014-2020 as part of the UniGreen project No. LLI-010.
The CL has been developed with support of the Central Baltic Programme 2014-2020 as part of the project CB786 “Nature Access to All” (NatAc).
Guidelines :
Accessibility Check List on Nature Trails in ENG:
Europarc webinar “How and why to make nature more accessible”
On 7 May 2021 within the framework of the NatAc Project partners hold a webinar hosted by Europarc Federation on How and Why to Make Nature More Accessible.
The first case study was brought from the hand of Sanna Kalmari, Accessible Travel Specialist & Travel Blogger from Finland. She spoke about nature as a part of national identity. Finland is the most forested country in Europe and big part of everyday life also for Sanna, who is a power wheelchair user. Sanna spoke about what accessible nature means for her, but shared also general tips how accessible nature should be promoted. She highlighted that people with accessibility needs have unique needs and they want to make choices just like everybody else. That’s why it’s important to have different kind of accessible trails.
Dafne Farré, Public Use and Environmental Education Technician from the Barcelona Provincial Council, Spain, presented in detail the Accessibility resources present at the Natural Parks Network of this region: the environmental programmes and services, the teaching materials and practicable itineraries. Dafne also presented the Natural Parks Network Accessibility Plan, its key steps needed to deploy accessible trails and its maintenance.
To end with, Alise Lūse, NatAc Project Leader and Accessible Nature Tourism & Trails Practitioner from Latvia, exposed the work that the project Nature Access to All (NatAc) is carrying out for implementing accessibility solutions and promoting the understanding in Latvia, Estonia and Finland. In her presentation, Alise shared a number of examples on how to make easy and efficient accessibility solutions at trails, incl. a path, a toilet, a resting area, info stands & tactile objects, as well as mentioned the recently developed mapeirons.eu platform, which contains a map and detailed information on more than 1000 accessible places.