Rockclimber’s motivations for participation, their stewardship of cliff environments, and access issues

Glyn John Thomas; Brendon Munge; Lynda Aldridge

doi:10.1007/s42322-025-00239-y

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Rockclimber’s motivations for participation, their stewardship of cliff environments, and access issues

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Rockclimber’s motivations for participation, their stewardship of cliff environments, and access issues

Glyn John Thomas, Brendon Munge and Lynda Aldridge

Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education, Vol.Advanced access

21-Feb-2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42322-025-00239-y

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Abstract

Custodianship

Environmental stewardship

Natural resource recreation

Outdoor recreation

Rockclimbing

The growth of participation in recreational rockclimbing is increasing the impacts on cliff environments and creating access issues. An online survey (N = 239) was conducted across Australia to establish rockclimbers’ motivations for participation, and the importance of, and care for, cliff environments. Respondents had a broad spread of ages, more males than females, and participated in sport climbing, traditional climbing and bouldering. Thematic analysis was used with the qualitative responses to open-ended questions and themes were identified. Data suggests that the environment was important to 95 per cent of respondents and 63 per cent indicated that participating in rockclimbing had spiritual, meditative, or nature benefits. This contradicts common views of rockclimbers as hedonistic, reckless, risk-takers. Furthermore, the stewardship practices identified demonstrates the respondents’ commitment to caring for cliff environments. However, access issues may persist if increased numbers of rockclimbers impact the conservation of natural and cultural values. The implications for outdoor education are also discussed.

Details

Title: Rockclimber’s motivations for participation, their stewardship of cliff environments, and access issues
Authors: Glyn John Thomas (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Education and Tertiary Access
Brendon Munge - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Education and Tertiary Access
Lynda Aldridge - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Education and Tertiary Access
Publication details: Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education, Vol.Advanced access
Publisher: Springer
DOI: 10.1007/s42322-025-00239-y
ISSN: 2522-879X; 2206-3110
Copyright note: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Data Availability: No datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.
Grant note: Lynda Aldridge received an Undergraduate Research Scholarship from The University of the Sunshine Coast to participate in the research that informed this manuscript.
Organisation Unit: School of Education and Tertiary Access
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991209454202621
Output Type: Journal article

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