INTERVIEW

Living the questions

If the way we’re operating in the world today is not leading to greater wellbeing for all involved, human and more-than-human, then how else could we be, work and collaborate together, across the divides of stories and sectors? 

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What is the World Ethic Forum?

The World Ethic Forum is a global organism inquiring into the preconditions for radically shared aliveness. We bring together diverse voices – thinkers, community leaders, elders, farmers, artists, activists and researchers across sectors, cultures and generations, as well as the many voices of the more-than-human – to explore the shared collective practices and capacities that define and enable a culture of care and kinship, in the service of all life.

Podcast

The World Ethic Forum podcast, Creating a Culture of Care and Kinship, features conversations with World Ethic Forum co-leads Anaïs Sägesser and Luea Ritter, hosted by Julien Leyre.

We’re not sharing pre-digested wisdom, but exploring what a live inquiry might actually be like. Some of it may feel strange, or inconclusive. That’s by design. We’re not here to give answers, but to loosen something, so that something else can emerge.

If you’re new, try our first episode on kinship with the more-than-human. We begin in childhood, with memories of cherry harvests and stories told to a tree, and remember a connection with the living world that was never lost, only silenced.

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  • Seeds of an Ethical Biome

    WorldEthicForum On Friday 20 November, in Wetzikon, central Switzerland, three of our Firekeepers – including our founder, Linard Bardill – will be sharing their work on a new book in the making.  Franz-Theo Gottwald is an emeritus professor of ethics in Berlin. Martin Ott is a farmer, and the author of Kühe verstehen, Understanding Cows.…

  • Working With Questions, Not Goals

    A goal presumes you already know, at least roughly, what needs to be done. When it comes to a culture of care and kinship, our starting point is that we don’t know where to even begin. This post explores why we work from a calling question rather than a goal, and how that question has…

  • Looking Back to the 2026 Firekeeper Gathering

    In 2026, the World Ethic Forum gathered on the African continent for the first time. With the support of our partner organisation Nile Journeys, we were hosted in Kenya. For everyone, this shift in place marked a change in the quality of our connection.

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Firekeeping

Firekeeping is the practice at the heart of the World Ethic Forum. 

We bring together a circle of more than 50 people, united by a shared commitment to tend the fire of our collective inquiry. Individually, firekeepers are regenerative farmers, community builders, researchers, artists, activists, and engaged citizens from across the world. Together, they co-hold the relational, ethical and emotional fields of our work, as trusted stewards.

Firekeepers embody our shared values of kinship, dignity, and interdependence, including with the more-than-human. They listen deeply, and speak authentically. They bring questions from the circle back to their communities, and return with stories, insights, and responses from the wider world. 

Firekeeping is more than a role. Echoing ancient traditions, it is a way of honouring and enhancing life. It is our shared practice to reweave relationships, and nurture radically shared aliveness.

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Firekeeper Gatherings

Radically Shared Aliveness

Our approach is anchored in a conviction that the world is alive, inter- and intra-connected. Yet our dominant cultural and societal models currently operate as if that wasn’t the case and keep perpetuating life-reducing and oppressive systems.

We believe that our current nexus of ecological, social and value crises, stems from deep disconnects, intentionally and unintentionally enhanced over centuries. We also believe that transcending today’s overlapping crises will come from a radical shift in our perception of and relation with all that is alive, including ourselves and the more-than-human: humans are called to support a society of all beings.

The World Ethic Forum is a Living Lab for this culture of radically shared aliveness.

ABOUT THE WORLD ETHIC FORUM

Our Thematic Priorities

01

Ethical Ground
Work

We explore the questions, perspectives and competencies that would help shape an ethic or a set of values enabling radically shared aliveness.

02

Decolonisation – Equity – Diversity – Inclusion

We gesture towards a future that transcends colonial patterns and integrates an inclusive, equitable, and diverse society.

03

Healing – Restoration – Reconciliation

We articulate and experiment with processes that can enable healing or repair fractured relational fabrics in the personal and the collective.

04

Kinship – Relating to all Beings

We engage in a world filled with relationships and root ourselves in a relational ontology where all beings are acknowledged and respected equally.

05

New forms of Economy – Householding

We investigate the blockages to radically shared aliveness that stem from our current economic, business, financial and material systems, and what we can do about them.

06

Stewardship of Bioregions – Agriculture and Food

We seek ways of shifting our relationship to the land, from one of ownership and extraction to one of care and custody, anchored in an organic bioregional approach.

07

Youth, Children, Elders, Parents – Intergenerational Learning and Dialogue

Inspired by a 7-generations principle, we look for ways of bringing together the voices and wisdom of different generations, and see ourselves as future ancestors in becoming.

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