Welsh activist wins national countryside award

Nation Cymru staff

A wheelchair user from Wales has picked up a prestigious award for her dedicated work towards improving access for all to the Welsh countryside.

After becoming a full-time wheelchair user in her twenties, Bethany Handley found herself excluded from the countryside she had grown up exploring, not by the landscape itself, but by stiles, gates and other barriers never designed with disabled people in mind.

Determined to change that, she has worked with organisations including the RSPB, Ramblers, ParalympicsGB and Forestry England to improve access to nature.

Training films she developed with Monmouthshire County Council helped volunteer groups replace 68 stiles, clear eight miles of paths and improve 466 pieces of path furniture.

As an ambassador for Country Living’s Access for All campaign, she also helped create a nationwide map of accessible walks shaped by the experiences of more than 1,000 disabled people and carers.

Bethany’s advocacy has influenced policy and public debate. Her evidence was cited in a Senedd committee inquiry, while her book, My Body is a Meadow, was named among the year’s leading climate books.

Through appearances on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live, national media coverage and festival stages, she has reached millions with a simple but powerful message: nature is for everyone.

At the heart of her work is lived experience. As Bethany puts it, “when you exclude one individual, you also exclude their family and friends.” That insight has helped organisations including the Ramblers and RSPB rethink how they approach path maintenance, accessibility and volunteer training, ensuring more people can enjoy the benefits of the natural world.

Bethany Handley said: ‘It means so much to win this award today because I want everyone to know that they belong in the countryside and that the barriers to access, whether or not that’s attitudinal or physical barriers, don’t need to exist.

“And there are so many ways that we can remove those barriers. This award means so much because it’s a celebration of how equality in the outdoors is possible, and we all deserve to feel we belong.’

Roger Mortlock, chief executive of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: ‘The winning organisations and individuals all demonstrate the power of local action.

“From improving access to the countryside to championing sustainable land use and delivering genuinely affordable rural housing, these inspiring projects may have started responding to a need on their doorstep, but their impact has been so much more significant.

“In a year when we are celebrating solutions for a thriving countryside, here are some of the very best.’