Exploring Western Australian Young People’s Contemporary Experiences and Perceptions of Their Relationship to the Natural Environment

Environmental changes and challenges have a profound impact on the psycho-social and overall well-being of young people. This qualitative study, grounded in eco-social work, explored how young people (aged 10–14) in Perth, Western Australia, experience and understand their relationship with nature. Purposive sampling was used to recruit 21 young people; data were generated through four semi-structured focus groups and analysed using thematic analysis within an interpretive orientation. Findings indicate that participants experience nature as a relational, emotionally significant presence central to well-being, identity, and belonging, rather than simply a setting that produces well-being through exposure. Participants demonstrated sophisticated environmental awareness and a strong orientation toward action, alongside significant barriers to engagement, including unequal access, institutional constraint, and exclusion from environmental decision-making. A further key finding concerns intergenerational communication: participants consistently sought honest information from adults and experienced managed reassurance as compounding, rather than easing, their environmental concern. These findings suggest that for this group of young people, their environmental knowledge, emotional engagement, and agency are already well established by early adolescence, and that apparent disengagement more often reflects structural exclusion than developmental limitation. The study concludes that recognising young people as active ecological agents, and addressing the structural conditions constraining their participation, is central to holistic wellbeing and to eco-social work practice, policy, and future research.