‘Making a wish’: Children and the local landscape.

The links between children's rights and their participation in environmental decision-making is a growing field of interest. This paper describes findings from a six-month in-depth pilot study with a small group of children aged 6–10 years located in a village in the northeast of England. The focus of this paper is on the relationship of these children with their local landscape and how they felt about involvement in decision-making that might affect that environment. The methodology was child-centred responding to the ‘languages’ of children. Two main findings are discussed in this paper: (a) issues of boundary were particularly important in physical and emotional terms for both children and parents and this had little to do with the rurality of the location; (b) children believe they have special knowledge about the environment, which they may express using a range of communication methods. The author reflects on what implications this might have for the design and layout of local environments generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]