Artwork by Odelia Toder, Artist in Residence.

As part of our work towards honouring, nourishing and increasing aliveness, we will be gathering around the theme of the microbiome and its impact on agriculture and medicine.

The event in Zurich revolves around the question of what makes the earth alive.

It took the earth 3 billion years to produce single-celled organisms. These viruses, bacteria, fungi, algae and countless other families of procariots and eucariots then led to the development of the wider biosphere. There are more protozoa on a teaspoon of earth than there are people on earth.

From the root of the tree into the apple and into our stomach, we too are made up of an almost infinite number of individual beings, all of which regulate our digestion, our immune system and our health in a balanced symbiosis.

From the very beginning, the World Ethic Forum has been inspired by honouring, nourishing and increasing aliveness. For us, ethics is an inner process of understanding the beings of the world as our relatives, as subjects and co-inhabitants with whom we can and may enter into relationship.
This also includes single-celled organisms and the miracle of the microbiome, respect for and everyday work with the pulsating becoming, being and passing of the entire biosphere.

Confirmed speakers include (more to follow):

Helmy Abouleish, Sekem. World Ethic Forum

Helmy Abouleish, Sekem (Egypt)

Sekem promotes sustainable development in ecology, economy, societal and cultural life, consciously integrating the interplay of microorganisms into agriculture. Founded in 1977 by the Abouleish family and fellow campaigners, the Sekem project has transformed parts of the Egptian desert into a thriving Garden of Eden and was awarded the Right Livelihood Award (‘Alternative Nobel Prize’) under the leadership of Helmy Abouleish.

Gabriele Berg, Professor TU Graz

Head of the Institute of Biotechnology at Graz University of Technology), Gabriele Berg has been researching the microbiome for 30 years. She has conducted many studies about the effects of agriculture on the plant and soil microbiome including one based at the Sekem initiative looking at its effects on microbial communities in desert soil.

The meeting on 22 June in Zurich is now setting a new standard. The vitality of the world is a gigantic collaboration, a game, a dance of beings that make the earth green and bloom.

This dance of life has a dimension beyond imagination, beyond predictability and beyond marketability.

The only thing we can do for the time being is to perceive this abundance, to appreciate it and to see it in its beauty and perfection. In every blossom, in every grain, in every tree shines the work of countless tiny beings, which in turn are nourished by the green of the plants.

Recognising, researching and nurturing this fact can have a huge impact on the future of our planet.

Even today, there is hardly an agricultural or medical faculty that does not include the microbiome as one of its most important areas of research. The health and growth of the biosphere is closely linked to it.

The microbiome has not yet reached the mainstream. We can still help to develop the ethical awareness that it is not just about preserving and increasing the biosphere, but also about our care and love, which is an essential part of preserving and increasing this biome.

The participatory gathering on 22 June is an attempt to honour this and to bring the multifaceted fact of pulsating vitality into our consciousness and actions.

We look forward to seeing each and every one of you.