3/18/2023 0 Comments Arctic doomsday vaultThe building of the vault itself has attracted much outside interest due to its location and its unusual engineering, security, and aesthetic features. Our success means we will guarantee the conservation and availability of these wildly diverse crops. We are in the midst of trying to rescue these varieties. "But about 50 percent of the unique diversity stored in seed banks still is endangered. "The opening of the seed vault marks a historic turning point in safeguarding the world's crop diversity,'' said Fowler. We now understand that along with international movements to save endangered species and the rainforests of the world, it is just as important for us to conserve the diversity of the world's crops for future generations," Maathai said. "The significant public interest in the seed vault project indicates that collectively we are changing the way we think about environmental conservation. The box was opened during the ceremony, and then resealed before being placed in the vault. It contained rice seeds specially prepared with varieties originating from 104 countries. Prime Minister Stoltenberg and Wangari Maathai, founder of the African Green Belt Movement and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, delivered together the first box of seeds to the vault. NordGen will manage the facility and maintain a public on-line database of samples stored in the seed vault, which has the capacity to house 4.5 million samples-some 2 billion seeds. The Global Crop Diversity Trust is providing support for the ongoing operations of the seed vault, as well as organizing and funding the preparation and shipment of seeds from developing countries to the facility. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is funded and established by Norway as a service to the world. "Crop diversity will soon prove to be our most potent and indispensable resource for addressing climate change, water and energy supply constraints, and for meeting the food needs of a growing population," said Cary Fowler, Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust. "With climate change and other forces threatening the diversity of life that sustains our planet, Norway is proud to be playing a central role in creating a facility capable of protecting what are not just seeds, but the fundamental building blocks of human civilization," said Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. Even in the worst-case scenarios of global warming, the vault rooms will remain naturally frozen for up to 200 years. Contingencies for climate change have been worked into the plan. This "fail-safe" facility, dug deep into the frozen rock of an Arctic mountain, will secure for centuries, or longer, hundreds of millions of seeds representing every important crop variety available in the world today.Īs well as protecting against the daily loss of diversity, the vault could also prove indispensable for restarting agricultural production at the regional or global level in the wake of a natural or man-made disaster. The diversity of our crops is essential for food production, yet it is being lost. The opening of the seed vault is part of an unprecedented effort to protect the planet's rapidly diminishing biodiversity. In all, the shipments of seeds secured in the vault today weighed approximately 10 tonnes, filling 676 boxes. Each sample may contain hundreds of seeds or more. A variety of Norwegian musicians and choirs also performed in the opening ceremony held 130 metres deep inside the frozen mountain.īuilt near the village of Longyearbyen on the island of Spitsbergen, the vault at its inception contains 268,000 distinct samples of seeds-each one originating from a different farm or field in the world. The President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, and a host of dignitaries and agriculture experts from around the globe deposited seeds during the ceremony. At the opening ceremony, the Prime Minister of Norway, Jens Stoltenberg, unlocked the vault and, together with the African Nobel Peace Prize-winning environmentalist Wangari Maathai, he placed the first seeds in the vault.
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