Tony de Brum was a national hero. He also achieved global impact in his role as an ambassador for island peoples and their resolve to address climate change, for everyone on the planet.

He was instrumental in leading a ‘High Ambition Coalition’ during the Paris climate negotiations in 2015, and earned global accolades for his astute political brinkmanship while remaining true to his unwavering principles of equity, justice and global kinship.

In various political roles, including Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister for Environment, Presidential Candidate and elected Senator for Kwajalein Atoll, Tony de Brum was a hardened veteran of politics in the Marshall Islands and the Micronesia region.

He lived through a volatile era of change in the Pacific. He witnessed the nuclear barrage on Bikini and the northern atolls, recalling the dreadful echo he experienced as a nine-year-old boy, out on a boat from Likiep, the atoll where he grew up. In the late 1970s and 1980s, he was instrumental in the independence movement for the Marshall Islands and the Micronesia region. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 for his work seeking to bring nuclear nations to account for their actions in the international courts.

Tony’s achievements and influential moments are captured in the wide collection of memorials and tributes that are currently spread across the news outlets of the world.

I would humbly like to share a personal account of working with Tony de Brum, to illustrate the continuing influence he has on a generation of climate activists and conservationists.

In 2008, I was working with the Marshall Islands Coastal and Marine Advisory Council (CMAC) to develop a national conservation and climate change strategy that would build on the innate strengths of the Marshallese – their traditional institutions and culture, and their pragmatic capacity to deal with adversity. As an adviser to the Marshall Islands delegation to the forthcoming 14^th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, I hoped to bring the voices and values of the island people to the cold negotiation halls of Poznań, Poland.

I was hosted by Tony de Brum at his house on Majuro, and then invited for an island excursion and fishing, to get away from the bustle of the capital. We ate fresh reef fish, Pandanus fruit, and drank coconut water. We spotted a Micronesia Pidgeon, symbol for the conservation movement on the islands, and walked to a shady patch of mangrove and viewed a precious lens of freshwater.

Our Marshallese colleagues, and my fellow visitors, including Ricky Carl from Pohnpei, discussed how we could best get the voices and stories of the Marshallese conservationists and community leaders to resonate in Poland, and reverberate outside the region. We discussed how global organisations like IUCN and The Nature Conservancy could help broadcast the call-to-action message of the islands.

Tony stopped our talk mid-way, and gave a very simple piece of advice that I remember clearly and have since tried to follow:

“If you have the chance, do what you can do. Take things on and make a difference. But always think: What can I do next? Where can I go from here? How can I make this bigger?”

Tony de Brum continued to fulfil these words in every way, every day. Even as the tributes continued to mount for his leadership of the ‘High Ambition Coalition’ in Paris, he again began to look forward (“Reimaanlok”, in Marshallese): “What can I do next?”. After Paris, he worked with IUCN to implement ecosystem-based adaptation in the Marshall Islands, and strengthen the country’s resilience to climate change.

Our deepest condolences are with his family, friends and compatriots. He will be sorely missed.