| Norwegian Vault Prepares to Preserve World's Seed Diversity |
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| Written by Erika Fredrickson | |
| Tuesday, 19 February 2008 | |
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A large cavern on a Norwegian archipelago will soon be home to a collection of global seeds from every corner of the Earth. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault will be used to store 4.5 million agricultural seed samples each representing important genetic diversity. Unlike gene banks which often allow withdrawal of seeds for genetic experimentation or planting, the Svalbard Vault is meant as an emergency seed account to be used only in the event that those seeds are lost to humankind. The Kingdom of Norway has sunk its own money (45,000,000 Kroner, or about 8.5 million USD) into building the vault but terms of use say that any nation that deposits its seeds there still owns and controls access to them. The Svalbard archipelago was picked as a seed vault for very specific reasons. One reason is that Norway has relative social, economic and political stability which they see as important when maintaining stewardship of potentially diminishing resources. Additionally, because Svalbard is sandwiched between Norway's mainland and the North Pole and isolated from extreme international traffic, it is easy to monitor for security. Additionally, in the face of climate change disasters (which is one reason to save the seeds in the first place) the vault itself (a three-chambered cave reached only through a 100 meter tunnel) is so deep in the mountain that, according to Vault proponents, it will not be affected by any currently known scenario of sea level rise or permafrost melt. The project -- which began in 1983 -- was just recently re-ignited, and now the vault will officially open on February 26th. The vault is in accordance with international gene bank standards and is projected to give the seeds an almost “endless” lifetime. Each sample of seeds contains duplicates of approximately 500 seeds and the samples so far include 70,000 varieties of rice, 30,000 types of beans, 10,000 types of maize and many other seeds from various parts of the world including Mexico, US, and the Middle East, with the biggest contributor being the Philippines. So far, GMO seeds are not approved for the vault. |
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