Sabrina Fernandes is a Brazilian political economist and member of the Global Ecosocialist Network. She is also a keynote speaker at Ecosocialism 2026, which will be held in Magan-djin/Brisbane over September 11–13.
Ahead of her visit to Australia, Fernandes spoke with Green Left’s Federico Fuentes about the importance of ecosocialist ideas in the fight for a better world.
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Ecosocialism has been gaining traction within the radical left. How do you define it?
Some people still view ecosocialism as meaning you are a socialist who is also interested in the environment, climate change, etc.
But I understand ecosocialism as a strain within Marxism and socialism that does not treat nature as just another issue we occasionally talk about and sometimes forget. Nature is central for ecosocialists — it is something we read into class, gender, race and capitalist exploitation.
The prefix “eco” is not there by chance. “Eco” modifies how we think about a socialist society. It reflects our understanding that we cannot build socialism on a scorched Earth and that we must consider the planet we will inherit.
Therefore, ecosocialists do not separate the struggle against capitalism from the struggle against capitalism’s destruction of nature.
We also understand that a post-capitalist society must do more than just overcome capitalism. It will have to overcome productivism, extractivism and other practices that disrespect nature and cause irreparable damage to Earth.
We need to change the mode of production not just to end labour exploitation but also the exploitation of nature.
How can ecosocialist ideas better equip us to fight imperialism?
Ecosocialists in Brazil and Latin America are well aware we need to be anti-imperialist. But being anti-imperialist is not enough — we need to be ecologically anti-imperialist.
Imperialism cannot simply be reduced to imperialist powers intervening in the economies and politics of the Global South, or superexploiting labour there. It also turns nature in the Global South into resources.
If our anti-imperialism does not take nature into account, we can end up replicating practices that destroy nature in the name of fighting imperialism.
An example is the Amazon forest, which spans across nine South American nation-states.
The Amazon is also home to hundreds of indigenous groups that have lived there and taken care of this territory for thousands of years. The Amazon is the result of their labour and care for nature.
If we treat anti-imperialism as simply a question of Brazil versus the US we can end up arguing against imperialists destroying our forest, but saying that if South American governments do it, that is fine, or at least within our rights.
This is a vulgar notion of sovereignty, but standard among the developmentalist left, and even some in the socialist left. The sovereignty we fight for must be ecological sovereignty, which intertwines internationalism and concerns over sovereignty with the notion of ecosystemic responsibility.
We must build an ecological anti-imperialism and show in practice that another way of life is possible — one that adjusts our mode of living and mode of production in accordance with nature.
Ecosocialists have developed the idea of sacrifice zones. Could you explain this concept?
Sacrifice zones is a concept from the environmental justice movement.
It reflects the level of inequality and violence seen when certain regions are treated as completely disposable and worth sacrificing for the good of the economy or nation-state.
Karl Marx explained that crisis is inherent to capitalism. A convenient way to manage a crisis is organising zones where its impacts are felt hardest. These are mostly territories already subjected to colonialism, imperialism, racial oppression, dispossession, etc, making them vulnerable to further exploitation.
Nowadays, due to what is called the “green transition” — which is really about decarbonising electricity rather than a real transition — what we find are green sacrifice zones.
These zones come with a twist though: they are justified with the argument that you cannot complain about lithium or cobalt mining because we need these minerals to fight climate change.
This is just a rehash of the argument to justify iron ore mining because we needed this for “development” and “progress”. The difference now is that if you resist green sacrifice zones, you are supposedly not just against progress but against fighting climate change — a quite perverse argument.
It is important to take the sacrifice zone concept seriously and develop ideas on production that manage impacts without sacrificing specific people or territories. That involves questions of industrial policy, trade, sufficiency, growth, etc.
That is why socialists have been discussing with degrowthers and post-growthers to achieve a synthesis that acknowledges the realities of inequalities between the Global North and South.
Is this where the ecosocialist concept of “unequal ecological exchange” can be useful?
Yes. Unequal economic exchange can be seen in the flow of goods. Global South countries primarily export cheap raw materials and import expensive manufactured goods. This trade imbalance creates an economic hole in Global South economies and makes them dependent on the Global North, resulting in dependent capitalism.
Unequal economic exchange also acknowledges workers in the Global South are super exploited compared to the labour of workers in the North.
Ecosocialists also want unequal ecological exchange in the conversation, because until now the transformation of nature into resources has been mostly ignored.
An example is meat. Argentina and Brazil export a lot of meat to the US, Europe and China. But they are not just exporting animals — through a lot of cruelty — but the water, soil, nutrients and everything else needed to grow that animal too.
Unequal ecological exchange happens there, and we need to raise this as it connects to ecological anti-imperialism and the question of degrowth. We need to ensure a just degrowth that does not create more inequalities, but instead accounts for them.
Are there other ecosocialist concepts that can help us better understand the world today?
Something ecosocialists talk about is eco-territorial internationalism. I helped develop this concept with Breno Bringel and others.
It grapples with the view many socialists hold of the state as being above everything else. Even though as ecosocialists we engage with the state, we find this view problematic.
Dealing with issues of sovereignty or democratic participation only through the state can end up simply replicating colonial relationships, especially with regards to indigenous peoples with traditional connections to territory.
It can also distract us from areas that could hold solutions.
A great example of eco-territorial internationalism is energy sector trade unions connecting across borders to promote work stoppages and strikes to stop oil exports to Israel.
Brazil finally stopped exporting oil to Israel last year after this kind of pressure. This did not come from the state or government, but an alliance of trade unions working with people in solidarity with Palestine across different countries. Together, they tracked the oil and the ports where it was switching ships to get to Israel.
But imagine if Brazil was still under a far-right government. Arguing that we must first elect a progressive government before applying this pressure would not make sense.
Eco-territorial internationalism allows us to find other avenues for internationalism that are not just about the state.
Another important concept that I recently learnt about is terricide. This concept was developed by Moira Millán, a Mapuche writer, warrior and defender of indigenous territories in Argentina.
The concept of terricide reminds us that ecocide is not just about the death of nature, but the death of our world-making with nature.
Some believe fighting for better environmental management or against environmental crimes is enough, but terricide reminds us that we are becoming more alienated from nature and this must be reversed.
The far right is not in government in Brazil, but it is still present in the form of Bolsonarism, the political movement behind former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro. How do you view the resurgence of the far right?
Brazil had four years of Bolsonaro government [2019-22], and the far right is making a very strong comeback across the region right now.
We saw this in Chile with José António Kast’s election [in 2025], Abelardo de la Espriella was just elected in Colombia, and, of course, there is Javier Milei in Argentina.
We also have Trump’s attacks on Venezuela, a country in a very tough situation especially after the earthquakes, and recent right-wing wins in Peru and Bolivia.
Things are not very easy right now; in fact they are really bad. And not just in South America, we are seeing this basically everywhere.
Moreover, the far right are quite connected and working together to advance their perspectives and objectives. They want to gain or retain power, but also retain a specific mode of production and a certain flow of goods and resources.
We cannot treat this comeback of the far-right as just ideological. Yes, these people are very authoritarian, they hate everyone, and are very sexist and racist. But they also want to further entrench a very violent form of capitalism.
That is why we need to fight the far right on the economic and environmental fronts.
What has the far-right’s rise meant in terms of the environment?
It is interesting to see how nature is treated amid this neo-fascist wave.
On one hand, the far right directly destroys nature through pillaging for resources, deforestation, mining for rare earth minerals, etc.
Brazil has large rare earth mineral reserves that China is interested in, which matters a lot to the US. The US is not happy with [Brazilian president] Lula [da Silva] because, even though Lula is not a big nationalist and is pro-extractivism, he has a different policy to the Bolsonaro family, which prefers to give away Brazil’s minerals to the US.
On the other hand, the Lula government wants to use rare earth minerals, be it for wind turbines and other technologies to fight climate change, or even in military tech. Lula promotes a capitalist model of the energy transition within Brazil, more akin to energy addition or diversification.
So, things are complex; they are not as binary as some think.
The Lula government sees nature as something to control. They might not sound like your standard climate denialists, but they fit the profile for partial denialisms.
That is why we need to talk about the dangers of green capitalism. There is a tendency to accept certain aspects of climate change as long as they can profit from them. But if a fact is an obstacle to profit and growth, then it is ignored or downplayed.
We have also seen the emergence of an eco-fascist trend within the far-right…
Yes. In Europe, we have an eco-fascist trend that says climate change and catastrophe are coming; therefore we must protect ourselves from immigrants. That is where authoritarianism comes in. So, we also need to be aware of this danger.
The main proponents of eco-fascism are found in more developed economies. But the Global South is not immune.
Many big business sectors want the far right in power to enable more violence against indigenous communities and relaxed environmental laws.
At the same time, these business sectors know climate change is affecting their crops, and that they will also be subject to environmental collapse. They are preparing for it, including through resource grabs.
So, we need a more complex view of society. Otherwise, we may think the only climate denialists are those who say climate change is the fault of volcanoes or does not exist at all.
Climate denialism is everywhere — even on the left. The developmentalist left pretends the situation is not as serious as it is while continuing to promote productivism.
Socialists traditionally place great emphasis on working-class struggles. Ecosocialists have sought to raise the importance of struggles by peoples of the Global South and, in particular, indigenous peoples. How do these struggles intersect?
As capitalism gets more complex, it takes on a different face depending on where you are in the world.
In Nordic countries it might look more like a welfare state, whereas in El Salvador it can have a very authoritarian character. Meanwhile, in places such as the Congo it can mean slave labour to obtain cobalt.
But while the faces are different, capitalism remains the same, and each face is interconnected. So, how capitalism looks to people depends on where they fit within it.
In this sense, indigenous struggles are not separate from working-class struggles. In reality, indigenous peoples are expelled from their lands and turned into workers in the city. As capital expands, indigenous people are de-territorialised and become completely dependent on selling their labour power for much less than what they produce.
This process is at capitalism’s core. So, how could I treat indigenous struggles as separate from working class struggle?
This is where, again, eco-territorial internationalism is a useful lens. It shows us that these connections and potential alliances exist.
These are not just based on thinking that what is happening to someone else is morally awful and deserves our sympathy and support. Eco-territorial internationalism shows us that, in the end, we are all part of the same “we” and that our solidarity is built on something more concrete than just compassion.
By moving beyond morality to political economy, we see how we are all fighting on the same basis and the same fronts. Drawing out these connections is part of our job.
There is a strong sense that things have gotten so bad that it might be too late to truly change things, or that change is not even possible. What are your thoughts on this?
A big issue we face is that our imagination has been captured, our horizon has been limited.
People say: “Tell me a country where ecosocialism is working.” Well, if for something to work it requires a whole country, then I cannot give you an example — but I can also say that there is no country where capitalism is working fully; in fact, it is collapsing everywhere.
But we should not limit ourselves to the state level. We should look at examples at the level of sectors and alliances that are forging alternative modes of living and production. When we do, we see that change is already happening.
We can see pushback against utilities’ privatisation and struggles to expand free transit in many areas in the Global North and South. These are ecosocialist struggles.
We have a lot to be proud of and build on. This can help us not feel so distraught. It is easy to be pessimistic. Things are not going completely in our favour right now, but everything is not lost.
We have a responsibility to help each other and to value good news. This is not the same as saying everything is fine and I do not need to do anything.
We need to tell the hard truths, but also value good news, get inspired by that, learn how to build from it, and organise together, as internationalists, for a real ecosocialist transition.
[The interview has been edited and abridged from the full version published at links.org.au.]