How can children and young people have a voice in urban treescapes?

Scientific understanding of climate change has, to date, failed to result in sufficient action. This paper proposes that a deficit model of top-down learning and dissemination in relation to public engagement with science may be part of the problem, particularly when considering the attitudes, values and empowerment of children and young people.
Drawing on two cross-university projects funded by the Future of UK Treescapes programme, in which children and young people took the lead in developing ideas about future treescapes, we interrogate assumptions and practices underpinning why and how scientists engage children and young people. Whilst there is widespread recognition that children and young people have a fundamental role to play in climate change responses, there is no clear framework that codifies best practice in enabling this.
Adopting a transdisciplinary approach, drawing together scientists with social scientists and humanities researchers with expertise on researching with children, our research provides a critical lens in relation to what ‘research’ with children could or should look like.
We present examples from our empirical work with a range of children and young people of different ages to highlight the contribution of ethnographic, situated, arts-based and practice-based approaches for disrupting power imbalances and enabling researchers to ‘listen’ to children in a different way. This expansive reconceptualisation of ‘listening’ involves sound, movement, relations and the more-than-human.
Too much work on climate change communication engagement remains situated within disciplinary silos. This paper advocates for a transdisciplinary approach suitable for responding more effectively to challenges of climate change and making space for children's voice in relation to this. We offer six guiding principles to inform best practice in gathering and embedding authentic voices of children and young people in development and consultation for environmental policymaking, planning and implementation purposes.

© 2025 The Author(s). People and Nature published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.

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