Diversity and identity strengthen health

Diversity and identity strengthen health

A lecture by Benjamin Bembé, held on 13 October 2024 as part of the autumn conference of the Natural Science Section at the Goetheanum.

The diversity of an ecosystem can today be regarded as an essential, if not indeed the most important, indicator of its health. This appears to apply equally to landscapes, forests and bodies of water as to holobionts: individual organisms with their microbiome. In the human being, psychological, spiritual and social health also depend on this diversity: the more diverse and individual, the healthier. In other words: diversity and identity strengthen health.

Benjamin Bembé, born 1972, studied biology and geography in Munich. Doctoral thesis on South American orchid bees at the Zoological State Collection Munich. Attended the South Bavarian Seminar for Waldorf Education. For 16 years upper-school teacher at the Free Waldorf School Landsberg am Lech. Since 2018 staff member at the Institute for Evolutionary Biology at the University of Witten/Herdecke, currently with the project “Gestalt Formation in the Living”. Numerous travels to countries in South and Central America as well as to Egypt.