Banner image: from left to right, An Taisce Chairperson, Stuart McCaul and President Phil Kearney. Photo credit: Damien Eagers

The 2025 An Taisce AGM took place in historic Tailors' Hall on the 25th of June.

This year, there were some notable new events taking place — in addition to the AGM and its packed agenda — to create space to share further highlights from 2024. Members were welcome to attend any or all of some events in addition to the AGM at 1pm.

Photo: (from left to right) An Taisce CEO Gary Freemantle, Head of Advocacy Dr Elaine McGoff, Interim Vice-Chair and Chair of the Climate Committee Terri Morrissey and An Taisce Chairperson Stuart McCaul. Credit: Damien Eagers

The event began with an opening welcome and presentation of the Annual Report from Gary Freemantle, An Taisce CEO and Stuart McCaul, Chairperson along with a talk on the work of advocacy and the current environmental landscape from Dr Elaine McGoff, Head of Advocacy.

After a light lunch, a participative Membership Engagement workshop was provided by Terri Morrissey, An Taisce’s Interim Vice-Chairperson and Climate Committee Chairperson.

These all led up to the 77th Annual General Meeting of An Taisce — The National Trust for Ireland. It was convened by An Taisce President Phil Kearney.

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The President’s address to An Taisce AGM June 25th, 2025    

Thanks to Gary and Stuart for the detailed overview of recent achievements and there are many. They both deserve great credit for their leadership of An Taisce over the past year.

I have decided to select out some highlights that for me express emphatically what An Taisce stands for and point towards our next steps:

I will start with an extract from Elaine’s powerful and personal keynote speech at the recent Mary Robinson Climate Conference in Ballina.  I should mention that we had a very strong An Taisce presence there including Liane Costello, Clean Coasts Biodiversity Officer, Gráinne Ryan, Climate Action Programme Manager, Aileen Bright GLOBE Ireland Coordinator and Rachel Geary, Learning about Ecosystems and Forests (LEAF) Ireland Programme Manager.

The conference theme was ‘Courage in Crisis’. 

To quote Elaine:

‘We need to have the courage to imagine a future where communities can thrive as part of a sustainable ecosystem. We know it can be done, because our ancestors did it, for more than 200,000 years before capitalism. And while we can’t go back in time, I think in moving forward we should look to the knowledge of those communities who haven't brought the earth to the brink of destruction, that is largely indigenous cultures. These cultures put a lot of value on the importance of principles like interdependence, trust and reciprocity.

So how do we structure our communities so they can function in this way? One concept  which resonated really strongly with me is that of the Children’s Fire, learned from a number of native American peoples. At the beginning of every meeting indigenous chiefs would light a fire in the centre of their circle to symbolise the future generations of all beings, human and non-human, and to ensure that the primary consideration should always be the continuation of life when making decisions of any kind. The protection of the children’s fire was paramount. 

Which begs the question, what sort of a society would choose to douse the children’s fire? Because, to be clear, that’s very much what we are doing. We have colonised their future, pillaged their inheritance, defiled the nest.  How do we become a society that once again cherishes the children’s fire? As a start we need to recognise that we’re living in a society shaped by colonialism, capitalism and over-consumption.’

So Elaine has inspired me to some symbolism — I will light a small children’s fire as a focal point of our meeting today. (I then lit a candle to burn for the course of the AGM)

The next highlight is very recent - it is the latest episode of the Climate Ambassador podcast with Daithí Brooks interviewing Kate Raworth, the inspirational founder of Doughnut Economics. Kate was hosted last year at a major event in IMMA, ‘Creating a Flourishing Irish Society: Well-being, Sustainability & Doughnut Economics’.

It was organised by An Taisce’s Green-Campus programme and Sinead McCoy, Development Director, and chaired by Dr Tony Holohan, now a Trustee. The interview, managed by a very well-prepared Daithí gives Kate a platform to spell out the history and key elements of her transformative socio-economic model. The Doughnut is the safe space between the nine planetary boundaries - six of which we have already transgressed - and the floor where all basic needs are met.  This is the place where life and people can flourish.

Make sure to listen to this podcast. It encapsulates the alternative to the current economic paradigm described and critiqued by Elaine in her speech.

The Doughnut model is being implemented in various forms across the globe at local and city level and Kate is committed to each location bringing its own genius to the application of the principles in its particular context.

There was some promise after last year’s event that there would be a follow up - a forum would be created to take these ideas forward.  To the best of my knowledge this hasn’t occurred. I would urge that stimulated by the podcast we engage actively with Kate, her Doughnut Economics Action Lab and her team here in Ireland to promote the principles in our networks and local associations.

I’ll admit that I hadn’t previously listened to the Climate Ambassador podcasts in spite of the fact that they won the best educational podcast award in 2024. Mea culpa. I will now do so and listen back to some of the amazing speakers that have been interviewed - Eoghan Daltun and Manchán Magan being two I want to start with. Please do likewise.

While on this theme there is a new series of webinars also on the website. The latest features Elaine explaining in detail the scale of the nitrate pollution in our waterways and giving a clear update on why we took the judicial review of the Nitrates Action Plan after multiple scientific critiques were ignored.  Again I strongly recommend it for listening and passing on.

From one of our scientific stalwarts to another — Professor John Sweeney, former president and key member of the Climate Committee - ATCC. Last month, the Irish Times published a powerful Op-Ed by John highlighting the legacy we are in danger of conferring on future generations if we fail to radically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. I know John was not explicitly wearing an An Taisce hat on this occasion but I think we are allowed to claim him. He was lighting the Children’s Fire in the article.

In the piece, John unpacks the legally-binding carbon budget process and the strong indications that we will fail to meet the requirement of the first budget thereby increasing the burden of the second and subsequent budgets. If anyone is having difficulty following that critical process please consult John’s article. It highlights that we are using up more than our fair share of the remaining global carbon budget. To quote him:

‘We are now entering carbon debt territory to the rest of the world. This is not an academic exercise – we are disproportionately contributing to the climate disasters of the present and future beyond our shores.’

As we speak, today the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Environment and Climate is reviewing the latest proposals from the Climate Change Advisory Council on the next round of carbon budgets. On behalf of An Taisce, the climate committee led by chair Terri Morrissey, has submitted a detailed criticism of the failure of the proposals to honour the commitments in the Paris Agreement to equity and fairness.

The climate committee was in the vanguard of promoting the introduction of carbon budgeting as an essential component of climate governance. John has written extensively on this with Prof Barry McMullin and Paul Price of ATCC. We are the strongest voice in the NGO sector in challenging the government, state agencies and the various sectors to respect the legally-binding limits to which they have committed.

Speaking of holding the government to account, our CEO, Gary, also published an Irish Times Op-Ed in February which was a robust critique of the Programme for Government.  It questioned the limited ambition and the incrementalism and called for tough choices and more visionary leadership commensurate with the challenge.  We must keep up this pressure.

My final highlight which I bring to this meeting in the light of the Children’s Fire, is the presentation made by Dr Tony Holohan to Council  in April.  It is a detailed rationale for the proposed One Health committee that he will chair starting in September.  I’ll admit to some initial reservations when I heard about this plan. Although the word ‘health’ appears in the An Taisce Articles of Association, my thoughts were that this is expanding the frame too much. It is not what the public think of when they think of An Taisce - water quality, yes, cultural heritage, yes, nature restoration, yes, etc, but not health. That’s for other players.

I have been completely won over by Tony’s argumentation having read his paper a couple of times. Human, animal and ecosystem health are, or should be, indivisible. Perhaps it is precisely because they are fragmented that we are in the ecological and human health mess in which we find ourselves.

I don’t think his paper has been widely distributed. It should be. I raised a reservation about this transformative shift in orientation and mission being vested in a single committee rather than being a organisation-wide change.  I will continue to argue that point as the proposed remit of the new committee is very extensive.  The boundaries between it and the existing committees will need careful negotiation.

Tony has indicated his substantial commitment to contributing to An Taisce’s future evolution.  I think this enhanced vision of ‘one health’ adds an innovative but essential piece to the An Taisce kaleidoscope and I look forward to it being embraced by all components of the organisation. 

This will involve some revision of our Strategic Plan in its next iteration. The current plan runs to next year. It has been providing a very useful source of coherent, targeted action and advocacy.  The process of updating the Plan will need to begin soon. I suggest that it should run to 2030 which has become a benchmark year in so many respects.

These are my series of highlights. Together they compose a formidable articulation of courage and commitment, of vision and inspiration.  They are informed by science and personal conviction. They pose a significant challenge to many elements of the status quo and spell out how they may be transformed. It is now our task to refine these resources into programmes and campaigns that are focused and resolute.

Last AGM I argued that ‘if we fail to safeguard the future, we cannot protect Ireland’s heritage.’ At the Christmas party, I said in conclusion that ‘An Taisce is well placed to take a leadership role in promoting the radical transformative measures that are necessary.

I think we are underway, sailing to Doughnutland in the good ship An Taisce and keeping the Children’s Fire burning on board. 

Thanks to all involved. 

Phil Kearney,

President, An Taisce

25/6/25