"Doom day seed vault" opens at Spitsbergen
Todays opening of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault has attracted the interest of the world media. The seed vault is the first of its kind, built to store up to 4,5 million seed from all over the world.
The vault is to officially opened by Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg. Together with him is President of the EU Commission, Josè Manuel Barosso as well as Nobel Peace Price winner Wangari Maathai and 60 international and Norwegian journalists.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, also called the “Doom day vault” and the “Noah’s Ark”, is built 120 meter inside the permafrost mountains of the far northern archipelago. The storage is to become a central bank for the world’s seeds, protected against climate changes, war and natural disasters
The vault is designed to store duplicates of seeds from seed collections from around the globe. Many of these collections from developing countries are in developing countries. If seeds are lost, e.g. as a result of natural disasters, war or simply a lack of resources, the seed collections may be reestablished using seeds from Svalbard.
See the Ministry of Agriculture’s film about the project here
