On the morning of this Friday (06), it was announced in Stanford that the next edition of the Planetary Health Meeting will take place in Brazil. After Harvard, Edinburgh and Stanford Universities, the 2021 edition will take place at the University of São Paulo (USP).
The event is composed of several presentations and discussions on the Planetary Health theme and includes the participation of researchers from around the world. In the 2019 edition, there were several presentations and discussions on subjects like climate change, sustainability, public policies, private sector participation, among others.
According to Professor Antonio Mauro Saraiva, Coordinator of the Planetary Health Study Group and Professor of Polytechnic School of USP, the upcoming event is an excellent opportunity to get more involved in the Global South. “At the 2021 event we will seek to further engage the Global South community, researchers and practitioners of actions related to planetary health,” tells Prof. Saraiva.
The importance of the event for the Southern Hemisphere is also reaffirmed by Nicole de Paula, a researcher at the Planetary Health Study Group and recently awarded the first “Klaus-Töpfer-Sustainability-Fellow”
Institute for Advanced Studies in Sustainability (IASS), Postdam, Germany. “More than an enormous responsibility, it is a great opportunity to bring this debate to the South. It helps in the issue of legitimacy and increases the chances of making this movement more ‘bottom-up’ by engaging new actors and minorities in a time of political hardship national and global, ” states Nicole.
In addition to the need for more extensive participation by the South in the discussions, the region’s physical and socioeconomic characteristics are additionally factors that demonstrate the importance of the South: “Many of the challenges are in those countries that are rich in natural resources, have a growing population at still high rates, but economically they are at a disadvantage. They are also countries and populations that should be strongly impacted by extreme events due to climate change, ” says Prof. Saraiva.
Enrique Barros, professor at the University of Caxias do Sul and Chair of the Working Party on the Environment of the World Organization of Family Doctors, underscores the importance of Brazil in the planetary health scenario: “The good news of the 2021 edition in Brazil was warmly welcome. The eyes of the world are progressively turning to the great existential issue of the health of our planet, and the international scientific and activist community perceives Brazil as the key to the future. Finally, we will see a beautiful and remarkable event at USP”.
More information about the next edition of Planetary Health Meeting will be coming soon. Follow here and on our social networks: Twitter, Facebook and Instagram!
Learn more about the 2019 edition at https://planetaryhealthannualmeeting.org/