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Hollowed out of a sandstone mountainside on a remote Norwegian island, a newly constructed planetary depository for seeds from key agricultural crops - dubbed the doomsday vault - is receiving its first samples this morning.
The underground, bombproof shelter, financed by the Norwegian government and located in the Svalbard Islands in the Arctic Ocean, is designed to safeguard the genetic diversity of the plants backing the world's food supply, in case political instability, nuclear war or climatic upheaval over the centuries wipes out key seed varieties from their countries of origin.
The vault has the capacity to hold a hoard of about 2.25 billion seeds, enough to preserve every important agricultural crop on Earth. But it will inter for safekeeping today an initial shipment of 100 million seeds from 268,000 varieties of wheat, barley, lentils and other crops, the beginning of a genetic trove that could come in handy for future generations.
The vault opening "marks a turning point toward ensuring the crops that sustain us will not be lost," said Cary Fowler, who helped assess the feasibility of the storage facility as executive director of the Rome-based Global Crop Diversity Trust, a plant preservation group.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is seen Longyearbyen, Norway. A 'doomsday' vault built to withstand an earthquake or nuclear strike is ready to open deep in the permafrost of an Arctic mountain, where it will protect millions of agriculture seeds from man-made and natural disasters. The vault is to be officially inaugurated on Tuesday, less than year after crews started drilling in Norway's Svalbard archipelago, about 1,000 kilometres from the North Pole. The vault has the capacity to store 4.5 million seed samples from around the globe, shielding them from climate change, wars, natural disasters and other threats. (John McConnico/AP)
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"In the case of a large-scale regional or even global catastrophe, it is quite likely that the seed vault would prove indispensable to humanity," he wrote in a report being released today that describes the thinking behind the creation of the vault, which cost about $9-million and has been built to withstand everything from global warming to nuclear war. "Given its location and construction, the seed vault would likely survive almost anything."
There are currently about 1,400 collections of agricultural seeds spread around the world at plant breeding facilities, in agriculture ministries and universities, holding about 6.5 million different cultivars, or crop varieties.
The new vault has been designed to gather samples from these collections and store them in a secure facility, ensuring that if anything happens to the original seeds, backups will be available to guarantee the unique genetic resources aren't permanently lost.
Construction of the vault, whose entrance of massive concrete slabs protrudes from a mountainside on Spitsbergen and is adorned with a collection of light-reflecting mirrors, was prompted by worries that many collections are vulnerable, even without a planetary Armageddon.
In recent years, Cameroon lost an important batch of tubers due to a weekend power outage, and a Philippine collection was badly damaged in a typhoon. An Italian gene bank ran into problems after its refrigeration equipment failed, and seed banks in Iraq and Afghanistan were looted during the ongoing wars.
Agriculture Canada is providing seeds for posterity at the vault. It sent 6,000 samples from 90 different species, including varieties of barley, other grains, clover and oilseeds such as canola. The seeds will remain the property of Canada while in Norway, and will be allowed to be retrieved only by Agriculture Canada.
"This really is probably the first international effort ever to provide a safe, secure site for duplicate backup of plant seed collections anywhere in the world," said Ken Richards, research manager for Agriculture Canada's genetic resources program.
Canada already backs up its collections by sending samples for storage with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but Mr. Richards says having Svalbard is good insurance.
Although Canada has indigenous food plants, such as saskatoon berries, strawberries and raspberries, their seeds don't store well and are not being sent to Svalbard. These plants are maintained in living collections, rather than seeds.
Some plants, such as coconuts, have seeds that don't store well, while others, such as bananas, don't have seeds. These species also have to be maintained in living collections.
Seeds sent for storage are wrapped in laminated, aluminum-foil envelopes. The vault is deep in permafrost where temperatures are typically -4 degrees to -6 degrees year-round. Special refrigeration equipment will bring the temperatures down to about -20, a level that keeps some seeds viable for centuries, others for decades.
Seeds nearing the end of their storage lives will be shipped back for planting to their countries of origin, where new seeds will be harvested to replenish the vault.
The vault is expected to be able to keep seeds cool, even under the worst-case global-warming scenarios over the next 200 years, and avoid flooding, should ice caps melt.
Although the vault has been given the doomsday moniker, Mr. Richards said he views it differently. "I think Noah's Ark is a much better term for it," he said.
SVALBARD GLOBAL SEED VAULT
Deep inside a mountain in Norway's Svalbard Islands in the Arctic, a seed vault opens today, eventually capable of protecting 2.25 billion seeds from around the world, in case of climate change, nuclear war or other catastrophes. Storage is free and there is no transfer of ownership.
-"Light" designed by Norwegian artist Dyveke Sanne makes a beacon at tunnel entrance
-Tunnel is 125 metres long
-Slight downward slope
-Sleeve to protect tunnel from the elements and erosion
-Transformer room and office
-Airlock Doors
-Seed vault #1 (of 3): Each room is 27 metres long, 9.5 metres wide and 5 metres high.
Each sample contains about 500 seeds. The samples are heat-sealed in moisture-proof foil packages that are composed of four laminated layers. They are then stored in plastic or cardboard boxes. The seeds are kept between -18 to -20 degrees Celsius by a 10-watt compressor but in the case of a power outage the temperature will not get warmer than -4 degrees Celsius.
