In December of 2024, we organised the Trialogue Days—Planetary Health from Different Perspectives: Mind the Gap, where about 60 Indian, Swiss and Ugandan experts came together to develop unconventional and innovative solutions for the complex modern challenges stemming from environmental degradation. The idea was to approach the problems in a way that benefits both humans and more-than-humans.
Read moreWe aired out our frustrations with the planet—with pollution, food shortages and everything we struggle to understand about the state of the Earth today—and encouraged contributions on our social media. Over the following months, researchers from Switzerland, India, Uganda and other countries worked to respond to those concerns through an illustrated book.
Read moreAs part of the 'Coexistence Exhibition: The Great Elephant Migration', we hosted multiple talks and film screenings at our Bengaluru on early 2024. India is one of the few places in the world where people and large wildlife still share space every day. To capture this reality of coexistence, community artists living along forest edges craft life-sized elephant sculptures from lantana, an invasive plant threatening India’s wild habitats. Modelled on real elephants from the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, these lantana elephants travelled from Karnataka to Cochin, London and the U.S., carrying stories of coexistence to global audiences and raising funds for their wild counterparts, and one of them even spent time at our office.
Read moreIn 2023 in Bengaluru, Swissnex in India together with Atria University hosted the Interspecies Money Symposium, where writer and technologist Jonathan Ledgard presented novel ways to invest in biodiversity and shared-interest systems, inviting conservationists, policymakers, technologists and finance professionals to explore how finance and technology might support both human and more-than-human life.
Read moreThe Knowledge2Action (K2A) SDG Online Academy hosted a three-week interactive programme designed for researchers, students, policymakers and curious individuals interested in connecting academic knowledge with real-world action on climate change, biodiversity and waste management. Through peer learning, design-thinking workshops and gamified sessions, participants from South Asia and Switzerland gained practical tools to turn ideas into impact.
Read moreA book designed to make planetary health accessible through real questions and clear language. Illustrated by artists from Uganda, India and Switzerland, the book is published on Pratham Books’ Storyweaver platform for global access.
Read moreScience Rapper Jon Chase created a rap anthem on planetary health during the Trialogue Days
Watch video“Swissnex for the Planet” marked our evolution into planetary diplomacy, recognising that human-centred approaches won’t solve global issues like climate change, biodiversity loss or pollution. The initiative acts as a global laboratory across the Swissnex network, bringing together science, technology, indigenous knowledge and the arts to prototype new ways of balancing more-than-human interests and redefining our relationship with the Earth.
About Planetary Health
The ongoing climate crisis is manifesting itself more and more strongly and in many ways. Let’s look at this through a few examples. Burning fossil fuels, which started with the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century and is considered to be the start of global warming, contributes to air pollution, which then exacerbates respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Pollution also affects the entire ecosystem cycle—it reduces soil and water quality, harms wildlife and shrinks agricultural productivity. This then leads to a loss of natural habitats which further leads to loss of biodiversity and an increase in risk of zoonotic diseases (diseases that have their origin in a non-human species but can crossover to humans, such as the Covid-19 virus) and disease outbreaks, which have massive consequences for human and animal health. Another example of a global issue that can only be effectively addressed through the Planetary- and One Health-approaches due to its complex nature is antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
Then there is the matter of extreme weather—one of the most visible effects of climate change that we experience in our daily lives. People are moving across borders due to forced migration caused by an increase in extreme weather events, and the impacts of climate change such as prolonged drought periods and shifted monsoons which render agricultural livelihoods impossible. This disproportionately affects low- and middle-income countries because they are least equipped to deal with the consequences due to poor public infrastructure and lack of support from the government. This issue again needs to be looked at from different perspectives across disciplines.
Human health depends on environmental and animal well being, as well as halting and eventually reversing global warming and climate change. All our actions and behaviours determine the possibility of future life on the planet and are closely interlinked.
Dr. Lena Robra
