These exceptional places have made a long-term commitment to protect the environment and promote environmental understanding. The three key requirements for SCENES are offering a natural area, providing environmental education, and maintaining best-practice environmental management.

Just as our youth program empowers young people with the knowledge and skills to make positive change in the world, SCENES aim to inspire all of their visitors to learn more about their local environment, reduce their negative impacts, and live in an environmentally friendly way.

One of the main strengths of SCENES is that they provide a place for young people to have direct experience with nature and the environment in a fun, hands-on way. These experiences can help them to apply what they have learnt when they return home. The SCENES network further strengthens these experiences by connecting the individual centres to work in cooperation with other accredited centres, partners, and Scouts throughout the world for the benefit of the environment.

Many Scout Centres around Australia practice these ideas, and one of our centres – Eprapah in Queensland – was among the first centres accredited as a SCENES in the early 1990s. A number of Australian Scout Centres are currently working on applications, and we hope that more centres will join the SCENES network from 2021.