The Green Cure

Lose the Red Tape

Full article © Natalie Gilbert 2009. Not for reproduction without permission.

Ever noticed all the red tape in your local park? Look closely and they’re littered with it. It starts before you even walk through the park gates.

Urban parks are full of promise. They offer green space, relaxation and recreation – a getaway from the dusty streets. They’re the spaces we’re taken to when we’re little to feed ducks and roll in the grass; it’s a place to ‘get some fresh air’ and lose ourselves in nature.

Consider how a trip to the park makes you feel. Are you ‘free’ there? Unburdened? In our minds, it’s a treat of a place to go and unwind.

What few of us consider is these urban green spaces are not at all removed from the structure found in our daily working lives or the order we construct in our personal lives to keep our heads above water.

Control

As a society we innately know where boundaries lie. There are behavioral norms and the expectation that we conform. We witness social anxiety where groups fail to obey with alternative thinkers brandished outsiders.

Wherever we go we’re synchronizing with other members of society. Even our own families have an inherent sense of order with each member taking on a different role. Each one of us affects the other.

These sequences we follow so intuitively are all around us in nature, right down to the smallest molecules that bond together to create a new sense of order. Organisms operate around one another as part of a larger ecosystem, functioning and adapting in evolving environments.

There is wonder in this organization and as scientists and ecologists strive to make sense of our natural world, we lap it up. We too want to understand these processes – the foundation of our reality.

Promise

Green spaces, beaches, lakes and nature reserves are just a few examples of the places that offer us liberation; a retreat from our busy and consciously or subconsciously ordered lives. For most people, nature is a gift.

Great Britain maps are covered in parks. Driving through towns, you come across the familiar brown sign used to identify an attraction. These signs are marked with symbols to represent available facilities and we recognize their meaning or implication.

We enter the park and find a pathway, which directs us through the space. We come across more signs that offer us choice: perhaps there’s a rose garden, a bowling green or a boat lake on different routes.

When we reach our destination we find yet more signs: 'don’t walk on the grass', 'no drinks beyond this point' and 'dogs must be kept on a lead'.

These messages inform our experience.

" Wherever we go we’re synchronizing with other members of society "

We might disapprove if we see a dog off its lead or find drinks cans strewn on the grass because we recognize this is outside the rules of the specified order.

As a society we need these systems and life would be chaotic without them. We need structure to ensure that progress is made without conflict.

When we need an escape from the daily grind many of us turn to nature, but if we’ve simply manipulated it in to our greater sense of order how much help is this space going to be long-term in the search for escapism?

Perhaps we should question the way we interact with nature, how it is molded to suit our needs or desires and whether or not this detracts from our full enjoyment or appreciation of it.

Making places

Hiding behind every tree in an urban park, buried underneath every patch of grass and floating in every foot of water is an environmental champion for the design of this feature.

Historically, parks were designed to bring communities together and provide a place where people of all ages could relax, exercise and enjoy its attractions.

All this has not been put together in a haphazard way – years of research have come before it.

Planners, designers, architects, councils, environmental bodies, local businesses, transport officials, economic experts; you name it, they all play their part in the construction of the urban park.

These champions for our green spaces make partnerships. They run surveys and map data. Findings are used to set targets, regulation is put in place and standard practice is adhered to. Experts and local residents are each consulted.

The result of these efforts is a green space that has been painstakingly constructed, piece by piece, to meet very specific goals.

Authentic experiences

This is all well and good for serving the purpose it needs to, which is to create an attractive, community-based, aspiring urban space, but what about breaking free of all this red tape?

If we want to get the most out of nature and experience it in an uninhibited way we must remove our own imbedded sense of order from within it.

The opportunity to better understand the natural world, no matter by how much or how little, is available to us all. Immerse yourself in it; respect it – don’t follow the signs put up by someone else. Learn its language.

Watch your own seeds grow instead of admiring other people’s flowers from afar, ramble through unkempt areas or take a trip abroad that doesn’t attract the regular tourists. It’s up to you how close to home or
far-flung you want your experience to be.

It’s impossible to escape human order – at some point we will always be standing in someone else’s system, but we can take little pieces of greenery and let them flower in to something from which we can take our own personal joy.

Feeling motivated?