Fiocruz holds conference on the SDGs with broad public participation and proposes including action against ecocide. [1]

On April 22, more than 70 people left their territories to attend the event at the auditorium of the Sergio Arouca National School of Public Health, at Fiocruz’s Manguinhos campus in Rio de Janeiro. Representatives of community organizations, favela leaders, researchers and public officials developed concrete proposals to include action against ecocide and environmental racism in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – Agenda 2030. Around 200 people also followed the event remotely.

Organized by Fiocruz’s Vice Presidency for Environment, Care and Health Promotion (VPAAPS) and the Fiocruz Strategy for the 2030 Agenda (EFA2030), with support from ENSP, the meeting was part of a preparatory stage for the 1st National Conference on the SDGs, which will take place in Brasília at the end of June. These preliminary meetings aim to ensure the broadest possible representation and social participation in building strategies for updating and effectively implementing the SDGs in Brazil. In this context, the Free Conference Ecocide is racism: SDG 18 means confronting and overcoming elected three Black women and one caiçara and Indigenous woman as delegates to take the proposals discussed at ENSP to the national stage.

“It is very important that Black women and women from peripheral communities occupy these spaces to think about and contribute to the construction of public policies based on lived experiences in the favelas,” said Zilda Soares de Freitas da Silva, who was elected as one of the delegates and is part of the Fala Akari Collective, created in the Acari favela in northern Rio. “Ecocide is a term widely used in academic spaces, and our goal is to unpack this word so that action against environmental racism is grounded in the realities of the territories,” added Luisa Borba, who was also elected as a delegate and serves as secretary for combating racism at the Central Única dos Trabalhadores.

In 2024, Brazil became the only country in the world to voluntarily adopt an 18th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 18): Ethnic and Racial Equality. This achievement recognizes that structural racism is one of the greatest obstacles to sustainable development in the country and establishes targets to confront it. The proposal of the Free Conference organized by Fiocruz was precisely to make use of this important instrument and build proposals so that the fight against ecocide is also included within it.

“The meeting exceeded our expectations. It was a major opportunity to collectively contribute so that public policies can adequately address overcoming ecocide; and SDG 18 plays a fundamental and structuring role in organizing this process,” said Guilherme Franco Netto, coordinator of Health and Environment at VPAAPS/Fiocruz and one of the organizers of the event. “Including ecocide in SDG 18 is an urgent agenda,” argued EFA 2030 researcher Marcelo Rasga, who also helped lead the meeting.

“Ecocide and SDG 18 are structural elements of the racial agenda”

The organizers’ remarks were echoed by Ronaldo dos Santos, who represented the Ministry of Racial Equality at the event. “For us, talking about racism, ecocide and SDG 18 is structural to the racial agenda,” he said. He serves as secretary for policies for Quilombola communities, traditional African-descendant communities, terreiro peoples and Roma communities. “Racism is a fundamental pillar in the structuring of social inequalities. That is why discussing action against racism through its cross-cutting nature is essential for the effectiveness of the other 17 SDGs.”

For Marly Cruz, Fiocruz vice president for Education, Information and Communication, the Free Conference can already be considered a historic moment. “Discussing SDG 18 and, above all, bringing the issue of ecocide into Fiocruz is a milestone for an institution that has long defended democracy and social justice,” she said, also emphasizing the importance of opening the institution’s doors to joint work with civil society. “The recommendations that emerged here are fundamental for giving concrete form to the problems faced by those living in the territories: this is how appropriate public policies emerge — through public participation.”

ENSP director Marco Menezes agreed. “This is an important moment to reaffirm Fiocruz’s commitment to historically vulnerable populations,” he said, invoking Sergio Arouca to show that the broader concept of health he introduced 40 years ago remains highly relevant today. “At that time, he spoke about housing, sanitation and income distribution. Today, environmental racism and ecocide expand this debate in relation to public health.”

During the conference, researcher Marcelo Rasga stressed that Agenda 2030 is entering its final stretch. He also highlighted that this is an excellent opportunity to point toward future directions for public policies aimed at reducing social inequalities. “This is the moment to take stock, assess what worked well and what can be improved. In this way, we have the capacity to influence what will come after 2030: what sustainable development agenda do we want to build?” he asked.

Judging by the meeting held at the ENSP auditorium, the next steps are marked by hope and action. “We had extraordinary representation and a public with enormous capacity for collaboration and contribution. We are leaving here with very positive proposals. I am certain that this Free Conference on ecocide will make a major contribution to the national stage,” said Guilherme Franco Netto