Earlier this month, I visited young people in communities supported by the ARDHI Tanga project in Tanzania. As the project reaches the end of its third and final year of implementation, I left inspired by their leadership in environmental conservation and their commitment to greater sustainability and cleaner energy in their communities. 

Their stories stayed with me during the journey home because they echoed many of the conversations that had taken place earlier this year at the annual conference of the DCU Institute for Climate and Society, whose 2026 theme was Holding the line: Climate action in a time of crisis. Throughout the conference, a recurring question emerged: what kind of relationship do we choose to have with the world around us? 

At the DCU conference, Ali Sheridan, Chair of Ireland's Just Transition commission, reminded participants that climate change is not experienced equally. Its impacts depend on people's lived realities, and too often the voices of those most affected go unheard. Professor Claire Dupont of Ghent University challenged participants to move beyond elections and strengthen democratic participation in climate action.

During the youth conference and our visits to communities in the Tanga region, the importance of these messages became immediately clear. Young people shared how unpredictable rainfall, prolonged droughts and soil erosion have affected their communities and livelihoods. Farming has become increasingly difficult. Harvests are less reliable. Families face rising food insecurity, increasing competition over scarce natural resources and, for many young people, pressure to migrate to urban areas in search of opportunity.

Yet what struck me most was not the scale of these challenges. It was their response: these young people have positioned themselves as agents of change. Through the ARDHI Tanga, they have established tree nurseries, promoted environmental conservation, participated in climate advocacy initiatives and championed cleaner energy solutions within their communities. Their work demonstrates what meaningful climate action looks like when local youth voices are trusted, supported and empowered.

This commitment to participation is central to World Vision Ireland's strategy and programming. Through approaches such as Citizen Voice and Action (CVA), communities are supported to engage with decision-makers on issues ranging from climate adaptation to disaster risk management.

Whether speaking in local forums, participating in international advocacy events or representing their peers within local government structures, young people have repeatedly demonstrated that climate leadership does not require political office.
It requires opportunity. It requires support. And it requires the chance to be heard.

The young people of Tanga left me hopeful. They demonstrated how environmental challenges can become opportunities for leadership, participation and collective action.

Yet while I was reflecting on their achievements as environmental stewards, another message from the DCU conference continued to resonate. In her keynote address, President Catherine Connolly highlighted what she described as the "elephant in the room": the normalisation of war.

"When we hear of climate change, we rarely hear about the emissions caused by warfare, notwithstanding that they are inextricably linked."
Extract from the address by President Connolly at the Annual Conference of the DCU Institute for Climate and Society
The statement challenges a major blind spot in climate discussions and global mitigation efforts as military emissions are often excluded or underreported in national climate accounting and international climate commitments.

When people think about environmental destruction, they often picture industrial pollution, deforestation, plastic waste or fossil fuels. Far less attention is paid to the environmental footprint of armed conflict. And yet war represents one of humanity's most destructive interventions in the natural world. 

Research from the Conflict and Environment Observatory estimates that global military activity accounts for approximately 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which is comparable to the emissions profile of some of the world's largest national economies and higher than the combined emissions for global civil aviation and shipping. Military operations depend heavily on fossil fuels, while conflicts generate additional emissions through infrastructure destruction, reconstruction efforts, displacement and the disruption of environmental governance.

The environmental consequences of war begin long before the first shot is fired and continue long after the ceasefire.

Some of these are immediately visible. Others emerge slowly over decades.

The most visible environmental impacts of conflict are often impossible to ignore.

Destroyed cities, damaged infrastructure, scorched landscapes and displaced communities dominate news coverage of conflicts in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine and elsewhere. Bullet-ridden buildings and abandoned neighbourhoods stand as immediate reminders of conflict. Satellite imagery provides stark evidence of devastation that can be viewed from space.

But visible destruction tells only part of the story. Beneath the surface, and long after media attention fades, conflicts leave a quieter and more enduring environmental legacy:

• Damaged water and sanitation infrastructure increases disease risks.
• Polluted soil reduces agricultural productivity and affecting food security. 
• Unexploded ordnance and military waste leave land unsafe for habitations and resettlement.
• Attacks on and damages to industrial sites, energy infrastructures and chemical facilities release pollutants into air, soil and water and can contaminate entire ecosystems. This toxic exposure is linked to long-term health risks such as respiratory illness and cancer.
• Conflict accelerates habitat destruction and species decline, particularly in already fragile or protected areas, with recovery taking decades or longer. War-driven deforestation and ecosystem destruction reduce the planet’s ability to absorb carbon.

Wars damage not only people and places; they weaken the environmental systems upon which future generations depend. These examples show that the health impacts and environmental costs of war are not temporary: they are cumulative, intergenerational, sometimes irreversible and too often ignored in global climate discussions.

When environmental destruction reaches a certain scale, should it be viewed merely as collateral damage, or should those responsible be held accountable?

This is why the concept of ecocide becomes increasingly important.

Ecocide refers to severe, widespread and long-lasting environmental destruction that threatens both ecosystems and human wellbeing. The concept asks a simple question: if societies recognise crimes against people and communities, should the deliberate or reckless destruction of the ecosystems that sustain life not be treated with similar seriousness?
The debate is ultimately about accountability.

Climate action is not only about restoration and conservation. It is also about ensuring that governments, institutions and corporations can be held accountable when environmental harm becomes severe and irreversible.

While the term remains absent from many legal frameworks, growing international movements are calling for ecocide to be recognised under international law alongside other serious crimes. The European Union has begun moving in this direction through the 2024  Nature Restoration Law (EU Regulation 2024/1991) and Environmental Crime Directive (EU 2024/1203), which introduced new "qualified offences" for environmental damage causing severe, widespread and substantial harm to ecosystems - compared to the 2008 Environmental Crime Directive framework.

Member states had until May 2026 to apply the Environmental Crime directive. However, Ireland – along with Denmark - formally opted-out. Ireland remains subject to the 2008 framework, which does not contain equivalent provisions addressing severe and irreversible ecosystem destruction. Critics and scholars, like the Environmental Justice Network Ireland, argue that this creates a legislative gap at a time when environmental pressures are intensifying across the island. 

Having lived near Lough Neagh for several years, it is difficult not to think about the ecological crisis affecting the largest freshwater lake on the island of Ireland. The degradation of Lough Neagh did not occur through conflict. It happened gradually, through the accumulation of pressures over time. Yet the lesson is similar.

Environmental damage rarely remains confined to one community or one generation.

Ecosystems do not recognise borders.

And without accountability, environmental degradation accumulates.

Protecting the environment requires supporting those who regenerate it, while ensuring that those who destroy it cannot do so with impunity. This is ultimately what it means to hold the line. Not only defending nature from further harm, but insisting that environmental destruction, wherever it occurs, matters enough to be counted, acknowledged and challenged.

Our collective responsibility to care and preserve the environment

Returning home from Tanzania, I found myself reflecting on another observation made by President Connolly:

The young people I met in Tanga understand this instinctively. They see how environmental degradation influences food security, livelihoods and resilience, migration and social cohesion. More importantly, they understand that they have a role in shaping a different future. Through every tree planted, every community meeting attended, every climate commitment championed and every voice raised, they are showing that another path is possible. In many ways, the youth involved in the ARDHI Tanga project show us the way forward and embody the spirit of the DCU conference theme: Holding the Line.

Holding the line is not only about reducing emissions or adapting to climate change.
It is about choosing which side of human action we strengthen.
It is about amplifying the voices of those most affected by environmental change.
It is about supporting communities to protect the ecosystems on which they depend.
And it is about recognising that environmental destruction, whether caused by neglect, exploitation or conflict, ultimately threatens our collective future.

Every day, around the world, people are deciding whether to destroy or restore, exploit or conserve, remain silent or act.

In Tanga, the choice was clear: "Vijana tuna wajibu wa kutunza na kuhifadhi Mazingera” (“We, the youth, have a responsibility to care for and preserve the environment”) was one of the slogan of the ARDHI Tanga youth conference.

The question is whether the rest of us are also prepared to act.