Research Digest: Nature and democracy | Children & Nature Network

MARCH 2026

In This Issue

Rights of the child
Rights of nature
Nature’s role in supporting democracy

At this time of concern about the health of our democracy, we’re looking toward an unexpected ally for renewal: the natural world.

In this edition of the Research Digest, we explore the provocative idea that nature is a vital (and hope-instilling) partner in the democratic process. We dive into recent literature to see how youth are reclaiming their right to a healthy future, debate the shifting legal landscape of the “rights of nature,” and examine how nature engagement fosters the very resilience and civic competencies our communities need to thrive.

From empowering children’s voices to questioning our own anthropocentric biases, this research suggests that the path to a healthier, more just democracy might just be found by stepping outside. At the Children & Nature Network, and at this time, we are proud to provide a resource that increases trust in science and public institutions.

Sincerely,

Cathy Jordan, PhD
Consulting Research Director

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Nature and democracy

In this Research Digest, we survey the recent literature to explore potential connections between nature engagement and democratic processes. The research we selected for this Digest centers around several questions: How do we respect children’s voices and their right to a healthy environment? Does nature itself have rights? How can children’s interactions with nature recognize the rights of nature? Can nature encourage the development of democratic qualities? Does nature strengthen community resilience and democratic participation?

To address these questions, we draw on research from various areas of the children and nature literature. The first section of the Digest focuses on the rights of the child. From this body of research, we review studies of youth climate advocacy that demonstrate how young people are actively claiming and shaping their rights to a healthy environment as well as their right to participate in environmental action.

The second section explores the rights of nature. Here, we focus on studies that have explored nature-based learning experiences through a rights of nature framework. These studies reveal how acknowledging the rights and intrinsic value of the more-than-human world can help educators and children strengthen their connection with the environment and view nature in more relational, and less anthropocentric, ways.

In the final section, we consider how nature supports democracy. The studies in this section clarify the links between nature and the development of democratic competencies and attributes. These studies highlight nature’s role in facilitating the personal traits and social health benefits that may strengthen democracy and even help communities act against injustice.

Rights of the child

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) states that “the climate crisis is a child rights crisis.” Along with threatening essential rights to health, education and protection, climate change violates children’s right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment — a right established by General Comment No. 26 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The comment also emphasizes the importance of upholding children’s rights to obtain information, participate in environmental decision-making processes and access justice.

The following studies explore how young people are actively defining and claiming their right to a healthy environment and to participate in climate action. These studies use participatory methods to highlight the perspectives and experiences of children and youth. Together, the studies suggest that youth-driven climate initiatives can, in some instances, reveal a shift away from traditional, adult-centered frameworks toward a post-paternal era for children’s rights that recognizes children’s capacity to define their own rights.

Youth climate action is redefining children’s rights in the context of climate change

This theoretical article, co-authored by a young climate advocate in Ireland, examined child and youth climate action since the adoption of the UNCRC. The Lundy Model, a participatory rights framework, was used to explore international examples of child/youth climate action through the concepts of space, voice, audience and influence. Youth engagement in climate action signifies a post-paternal era for children’s rights in which young people actively claim their own rights rather than waiting for adults to grant or define them.
Daly et al., 2025. Participation and postpaternalism: Child/youth climate action and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
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Children and youth in the Global South strive to redefine their right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment through climate activism

Young climate activists in Asia and Africa co-authored this article, which examined their experiences advocating for the right to a healthy environment. The co-authors highlighted how meaningful inclusion in climate action and decision-making processes facilitated a post-paternalistic approach to youth-led climate action that recognized youth’s capacity to define their own rights. However, experiences that did not support authentic engagement revealed that adultist frameworks often continue to define youth’s climate advocacy.
Singh et al., 2025. An intergenerational exploration of participation, power and praxis in re-imaging children’s right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
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A child rights-based approach to climate education should support children’s authentic and meaningful participation

This participatory study used a child rights-based methodology to engage Irish preschool children (age 2–5) in climate change research and education. Findings focus on seven strategies, developed with children, that may guide educators and researchers in implementing a child rights-based approach. The strategies aim to ensure respect for children’s lived experience and to promote authentic opportunities for children to participate, express their views on issues affecting them and experience agency.
Ranta, 2023. ‘Can we see our voices?’ Young children’s own contributions to authentic child participation as a pillar for sustainability under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
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Young people have been leading a human rights-based approach to climate change

This article examined academic and gray literature and the authors’ experiences as young activists to consider how youth-led climate advocacy has advanced human rights. International examples show that young people’s climate actions have furthered human rights principles of participation, equality, non-discrimination, accountability and transparency. The study highlights barriers to youth participation and offers suggestions to help policymakers support youth-led, human rights-based climate advocacy.
Gasparri et al., 2021. Children, adolescents, and youth pioneering a human rights-based approach to climate change.
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Rights of nature

Just as the rights of children are central to democracy, so are the rights of nature itself. The Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights contends that “democratic rights and environmental rights are integrally connected.” The rights of nature framework acknowledges the intrinsic rights of the more-than-human world, a concept rooted in many Indigenous cultures.

The studies in this section highlight nature-based learning pedagogies that challenge traditional views of human dominance over nature by recognizing the rights, agency and intrinsic value of the more-than-human world. The studies reveal how a rights of nature perspective can help educators and children deepen their environmental ethics and view nature as a partner in inspiring learning. Additionally, research indicates that fostering a close relationship with nature in children may promote eco-centric values, and recognizing the intrinsic worth of nature may motivate environmental stewardship.

Eco-democracy in environmental education could contribute to mutually beneficial flourishing

A synthesis of several academic literatures outlines how environmental education (EE) might contribute to eco-democracy, which recognizes the rights and agency of the more-than-human. Authors argue that ‘seedlings’ of eco-democracy exist within EE initiatives that aim to develop humans’ capacities to honor the voice, consent and self-determination of nature. Kindness, another eco-democratic commitment, is also evident in EE that promotes more cooperative and less individualistic environmental perspectives.
Blenkinsop & Wilhelmsson, 2025. In search of eco-democracy: Education for mutually beneficial flourishing.
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Early childhood educators’ shifts towards relational pedagogies acknowledged nature’s rights and agency

This participatory action research study was conducted with 21 Australian early childhood educators in nature play programs. Participation in the research facilitated transformative shifts in educators’ worldviews, identities and pedagogies for sustainability. Educators’ deepening environmental ethics incorporated a developing awareness of the rights, knowledges and agencies of the more-than-human. Educators’ aims to collaborate with nature were also evident in their shifts towards relational pedagogies.
Hughes, 2023. Early childhood educators’ professional learning for sustainability through action research in Australian immersive nature play programmes.
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Wild Pedagogies can support children’s agency and relationships with Place

This Canadian study explored children’s (age 5–7) self-guided outdoor learning experiences through a Wild Pedagogies perspective. Observations and videos from wearable cameras revealed key aspects of Wild Pedagogy, such as children’s play with sticks suggested that the sticks acted as more-than-human co-teachers. Touchstones of Wild Pedagogy were also evident in experiences that fostered children’s agency, relationships with Place, and emotional and ethical connections with the environment.
Beattie, Scott & Adler, 2025. Wild pedagogies and young children through the mosaic approach.
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Educators’ respectful relationships with nature can center nature as a co-teacher and acknowledge the agency of the more-than-human world

This qualitative study explored how an environmental education initiative in Japan facilitated transformative educational approaches. Interviews with educators and surveys completed by 266 fourth graders (age 9–10) revealed an emerging awareness of more-than-human entities as active participants in learning processes. Respectful relationships with nature can position educators and students to see nature not just as a resource, but as an agentic co-teacher that can inspire awe and learning.
Kondo & Baars, 2025. Transforming pedagogical landscapes in the Anthropocene: perspectives on more-than-human agency and nature as a co-teacher in vernacular ways.
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Children who are strongly connected to nature demonstrate eco-centric reasoning

This experimental study, conducted with 185 Korean children (age 5) and their mothers, examined children’s moral judgments of environmentally harmful behaviors. Children with a higher connection to nature were more likely to offer eco-centric (rather than anthropocentric) reasoning compared to a control group. Children also judged environmentally harmful behaviors more severely when based on eco-centric reasoning. Valuing nature for its own sake may motivate children to care for the environment.
Hye-Jung & Naya, 2024. Children’s moral judgments and reasoning regarding environmentally harmful behaviors: Variation by victim type and moderation effect of connectedness to nature.
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Nature’s role in supporting democracy

Can nature support democracy? Does fostering children’s connection to nature contribute to the development of democratic values and citizenship capacities? Although the research has not explicitly addressed such questions, certain findings suggest a link between nature and the development of democratic competencies and attributes.

The following studies support nature’s role in facilitating attributes that enable democracy to flourish. These include personal qualities, such as a disposition to do good and act out of concern for others, belief in equality, and respect for others and the more-than-human aspects of nature. The studies also present evidence that nature is linked to a host of improved social outcomes, including social cohesion, trust and a sense of belonging among diverse groups. Importantly, such benefits bolster community resilience and can promote civic engagement and collective action in response to social and environmental injustices.

Children with a strong connection to nature may be more likely to express concern for others, value equality and act in environmentally friendly ways

Nearly 300 children (age 9–12) in Mexico completed questionnaires assessing connectedness to nature, sustainable behaviors and subjective happiness. Findings showed that children who were strongly connected to nature were more likely to help others, engage in altruistic acts, believe in equality and participate in pro-ecological behaviors. They also reported greater happiness. Fostering children’s connection with nature may encourage more sustainable, altruistic, prosocial and equitable behaviors.
Barrera-Hernández et al., 2020. Connectedness to nature: Its impact on sustainable behaviors and happiness in children.
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Interacting with relatively wild nature can promote less dominating, more relational behaviors

This study compared how children in Hong Kong (age 3–8) interacted with relatively wild nature and more domestic nature. Children demonstrated more relational patterns in wilder park areas and more dominating behaviors in more domesticated parts of parks. Different types of child-nature interactions may encourage different environmental orientations in children. In particular, wild landscapes may help children learn more respectful ways of interacting with other people, animals and the natural world.
Lam, Kahn & Weiss, 2023. Children in Hong Kong interacting with relatively wild nature (vs. domestic nature) engage in less dominating and more relational behaviors.
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Time in nature is linked to positive youth development for middle school students

Surveys completed by 1,730 Chinese adolescents (grades 7–9) revealed that contact with natural environments was significantly linked to positive youth development, while contact with artificial environments was not. Natural environments were found to indirectly influence positive youth development through two pathways: improved connectedness to nature and reduced perceived stress. Nature is an important developmental resource during adolescence that may promote traits such as benevolence, trustworthiness and perseverance.
Li et al., 2025. The impact of contact with nature on positive youth development: a multiple mediation model.
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Exposure to nature is linked to improved social cohesion and social health

This research synthesis of evidence across several research fields clarified how nature benefits social well-being. Both immediate and long-term positive social health effects were identified, including (1) an increase in prosocial behavior and social connection and (2) a decrease in antisocial behavior, such as crime and aggression. Nature may promote social cohesion through the experience of self-transcendent emotions (such as awe), place attachment, trust and improved self-regulation.
Arbuthnott, 2023. Nature exposure and social health: Prosocial behavior, social cohesion, and effect pathways.
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Community gardens cultivate social capital and community resilience

This research summary synthesized findings from 50 studies (conducted with children and adults) to examine the social benefits of community gardens. The studies consistently reported increased psychological well-being, social connectedness and civic engagement. Findings suggest community gardens develop social capital by nurturing trust, decreasing social isolation and fostering inclusive, cooperative communities. Community gardens are vital resources that strengthen community resilience and democratic participation.
D’Amore et al., 2026. Community gardens and the cultivation of social capital.
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Nature encounters can promote a sense of belonging and enhance the overall well-being of refugees

Seventeen young adult refugees (age 18–30) who, as youth, had been unaccompanied asylum-seekers that resettled in Finland, created artworks and were interviewed about nature’s role in their well-being. Nature encounters generated positive feelings and thoughts, fostered a sense of belonging and helped the refugees feel connected, either with other people through social interactions in nature or with the more-than-human aspects of nature itself.
Haswell, 2023. Nature and belonging in the lives of young refugees: A relational wellbeing perspective.
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