Svalbard Global Seed Vault

Also know as Doomsday Vault by the media it opened on 26^th of February,2008 with the purpose of aiding the world by giving insurance against natural catastrophes damaging our natural resources. As you can see in the title it is a vault that holds seeds from all over the world in case the seedbanks spread throughout the world suffer any kind of adversity. This seedbanks are also called genebanks and exist all around the world storing around 6,5 million samples. The idea is to have one huge bank with seeds from all of this smaller ones around the world to be use as insurance for any upcoming problems. It sounds a fantastic idea doesn’t it?

It is located underneath the ground 125 meters deep in the mountainside near a small village called Longyearbyen in the region of Svalbard. This region is located on the north of Norway and is formed by a group of small islands just over 1000km for the North Pole. The temperatures are freezing cold all year long and the permafrost assures that the seed samples remain frozen even if the industrial fridge chambers work at minimum power. Just as a fun fact this region has the northern airport in the world on which lands only one plain a day. It is located in this remote and inhospitable location to assure its security.

This vault was constructed by the Norwegian government and it’s managed by Trust, NordGen ( Norwegian Genetic Resource Center) and the local government in a well sustained partnership. Nordgen is a gene bank from all the Nordic countries under the supervision of the Nordic Council of Ministers. The funds to build the vault were given by the Norwegian Government and are estimated to be around 8 million dollars with a maintenance of 150 000 dollars each year. United Nations Fundation founded by the Bill Gates foundation also helps with the transportation of seeds from all over the world and with the much needed funds.

As said before it has the objective of gathering and maintaining in perfect conditions all the seeds of the world which are vulnerable to a wide range of different threats like human destruction, natural catastrophes, abandonment due to lack of funds to make it profit and equipment malfunction, etc. This vault ensures that there are lots of duplicates for each of every seed which in time will provide a good source of food to help with the needs of the world. This vault was long awaited by the international community as the idea for it dates back in the 80’s. The main steps came with the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture in which it was agreed a document for conserving crop diversity which gave the push to move this project forward.

There are more than 100 institutes worldwide that help with the sending and packaging of samples and even any farmer, scientist or plant breeder around the world can give it a help by depositing any type of seed they have nearby. Just visit the site. As of today there are more than 500 000 samples in the Vault which represents nearly 90% of the world’s seeds.

It’s important to point out that all the seeds stored inside the vault remain the property of the country, institution or person that donated them. Off course the storage is absolutely free and no one has the right to open the box in which they came. They remain at perfect conditions for as long as needed at temperatures of around -16ºC but can be even lower if necessary. The seeds are regularly monitored physical and by machines to ensure that everything is going as planned.