Svalbard Global Seed Vault

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The design of the Seed Vault as of early 2007

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Norwegian: Svalbard globale frøhvelv; also called the Norwegian Seed Bank) is a "doomsday" seedbank under construction on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the remote arctic Svalbard archipelago. The Norwegian government will fund most of the $5 million construction cost, while the Global Crop Diversity Trust will take responsibility for operating the facility. The prime ministers of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland participated in a ceremonial "laying of the first stone" on 19 June 2006.

1 Construction
2 Mission
3 History
4 External links

[edit] Construction

The proposed seedbank, also known as the Svalbard International Seed Vault, will be built by hollowing out a cave in a sandstone mountain on Spitsbergen Island. The bank will have dual blast-proof doors with motion sensors, two airlocks, and walls of steel-reinforced concrete one metre thick. Seeds will be wrapped in aluminium foil to keep out moisture. There will be no full-time staff, but the vault's relative inaccessibility make it easy to track human activity.

Spitsbergen was considered an ideal location due to its lack of tectonic activity and its longtime permafrost, which will help to preserve seeds. Coal from a local mine will also be used to power refrigeration units which will further cool the seeds to the internationally-recommended standard −20 to −30 C. ^[1] Prior to construction, a feasibility study determined that the vault could preserve seeds from most of the major food crops for hundreds of years. Other seeds, including those of important grains, could survive far longer, possibly for thousands of years.

The project is scheduled for completion in late 2008. At that time, countries around the world are expected to donate seeds representing local indigenous crops. The variety and volume of seeds stored will depend on the number of countries participating in the project.

[edit] Mission

The Svalbard International Seed Vault's mission is to store as many seeds known to humans as possible, under the terms of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The goal is to prevent important agricultural and wild plants from becoming rare or extinct in the event of a global disaster such as global warming, a meteorite strike, nuclear or biological warfare, or gene pollution from transgenic plants. There are already over 1400 local seedbanks around the world, but many are in politically unstable or environmentally threatened nations. When this seedbank is built, the vault will be secure and isolated from much of the world's population.

[edit] History

The Nordic Gene Bank has stored a safe backup of Nordic plant germplasm as frozen seeds at Svalbard since 1984 in a now abandoned coal mine. The Nordic Gene Bank (NGB) has during the years deposited more than 10 000 seed samples of more than 2 000 cultivars of 300 different species. The NGB safe backup will be transferred to the new facility.