Norway Doomsday Seed Saving Vault

Svalbard Global Seed Bank Open on Norwegian Island in Arctic Circle

Mar 1, 2008 Janienne Jennrich

Global Issue: Svalbard Global Seed Saving Vault, dubbed the Doomsday Vault, on a Norwegian island in the Arctic Circle. A Noah's Ark for saving organic garden seeds?

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault opened February 26, 2008 to begin storing duplicates of seeds from seed collections around the globe. Hidden deep away in the permafrost in the mountains of Svalbard, Norway, the project dubbed The Doomsday Vault, now protects 268,000 different seed samples. Each sample can include hundreds of seeds, so the vault already holds approximately 10 tons of seeds. It has the capacity to store about two billion farm and organic garden seeds.

The Global Svalbard Seed Vault's Mission (aka The Doomsday Vault)

As a sort of Noah's Ark of Seeds, the Global Svalbard Seed Vault 's mission is to preserve genetic diversity, which could be vital in case of worldwide disaster, such an extreme earthquake, climate change, wars, natural disasters, lack of funding, poor agricultural management and other threats. If crops around the globe were wiped out, at least these organic seeds and their genetic material would be protected and available to grow again.

A Global Issue - How Seeds in the Doomsday Vault Will Survive

The Global Svalbard Seed saving Vault creates hope for the future, which is also the hope of the Global Crop Diversity Trust. This vault is the ultimte backup to the other 1400 seed vaults in the world. Beacuse of its distance from human danger and the island's estimated 3000 polar bears, the saved seeds seem quite safe.

Before stored in the Global Svalbard Seed Vault, the organic seeds are specially wrapped, sealed and then stored at -18C in order to slow the aging process of the seeds. If the electricity fails, the permafrost in the remote mountain location should keep the seeds alive. In the extreme cold temperature, scientists believe some seeds stored in the vault could potentially remain viable for thousands of years.

Seeds Being Delived to Doomsday Vault from Across the World

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault opened and seeds are on their way from Canada, Colombia, Kenya, the Philippines, Syria, Nigeria, Pakistan, and many other countries.

As an example, Canada sent 5,936 seed samples representing 94 different species from the national seed bank located in Saskatoon, including 109 varieties of soybeans. Canada's main contribution was 3,777 different lines of barley.
Several thousand potato seeds are coming from Lima, Peru seed banks.
Mexico is shipping 47,000 seed samples of wheat as well as 10,000 types of maize.
The Philippines are sending 70,000 varieties of rice from 120 different countries.
And the list goes on an on, including garden seed.

According to Ola Westengen, operation manager of NordGen/Svalbard Global Seed Vault , "We have achieved an very good collaboration with all of the seed banks that are sending seeds to Svalbard. Enthusiasm for the project is great everywhere in the world."

Resources

The Canadian Clonal Genebank in Harrow

Daily Dispatch Online

CNN.com

Svalbard Global Seed Vault Website

Note: Teachers and homeschooling families may find the Svalbard Global Seed Vault a great lesson plan idea for science classes, news, global issues, environmental studies, or ecology.

The copyright of the article Norway Doomsday Seed Saving Vault in Environmentalism is owned by Janienne Jennrich. Permission to republish Norway Doomsday Seed Saving Vault in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.