Artic vault acts as Noah’s Ark for global crop seeds
BBC reports that Norway is starting construction on a “doomsday vault” in the Arctic which is designed to house all known varieties of the world’s crops. The vault’s purpose is to ensure survival of crop diversity in the event of plant epidemics, nuclear war, natural disasters or climate change; and to offer the world a chance to restart growth of food crops that may have been wiped out.
More than 100 countries have backed the vault, which will store seeds, packaged in foil, at sub-zero temperatures. Fenced in and guarded, with steel airlock doors, motion detectors and polar bears roaming outside, the concrete facility will, its backers say, be the most secure building of its type in the world.
Norway’s Agriculture Minister Terje Riis-Johansen has called the vault a “Noah’s Ark on Svalbard.” Norway’s remote Svalbard Islands, are roughly 1,000 km (620 miles) from the North Pole.
Already, some 1,400 seed banks around the world, most of them national, hold samples of a country’s crops. But these banks “can be affected by shutdowns, natural disasters, war or simply a lack of money,” said Mr Riis-Johansen.
While Norway will own the vault itself, countries sending seeds will own the material they deposit, much as with a bank safe-deposit box. The Global Crop Diversity Trust will help developing countries pay the cost of preparing and sending seeds.
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