If those seed banks later lose their own resources, because of natural or man-made disaster, the collections could be restored by getting the copies back from Svalbard. Norwegian law, promulgated prior to the establishment of the Seed Vault and intended therefore to apply more generally to research and use of genetically modified organisms in Norway, effectively prohibits importation of genetically modified seeds and their storage in Svalbard at this time.
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Thank you for your suscription to our monthly Crop Topics newsletter. Have a look at our Previous newsletters. Send Tweet Share Print. What groups are involved in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault? Why Svalbard? How much did it cost to build the vault?
What are the dimensions of the vault? The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, function as safety depository for orthodox seeds, primarily of domesticated plants and their wild relatives that are important to food and agriculture.
A perfect location Svalbard is the Norwegian archipelago half way between the Norhern pole and Mainland Norway. This location are in many ways a perfect location for the worlds seed backup.
Some have been hit by natural disasters, like the Philippine national gene bank, which was damaged by flooding from a typhoon and later a fire. Woefully underfunded, many lack the resources to properly store or protect the seeds they hold. One of the most historically significant deposits of seeds inside the vault comes from a collection in St. During the siege of Leningrad, about a dozen scientists barricaded themselves in the room containing the seeds in order to protect them from hungry citizens and the surrounding German army.
As the siege dragged on, a number of them eventually died from starvation. One of the scientists, Dmitri Ivanov, is said to have died surrounded by bags of rice. In an age of heightened geopolitical tensions and uncertainty, the Svalbard vault is an unusual and hopeful exercise in international cooperation for the good of humankind.
Any organization or country can send seeds to it, and there are no restrictions because of politics or the requirements of diplomacy.
Red wooden boxes from North Korea sit alongside black boxes from the U. Over on the next aisle, boxes of seeds from Ukraine sit atop seeds from Russia. Reporting for this article was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. This means that a depositor who chooses to store seeds in the Seed Vault is still the owner of the seeds and the only one who can withdraw them from the Seed Vault.
While the seeds are stored in the Seed Vault, only NordGen personnel are allowed to handle the seed boxes. Can I deposit my own seeds in the Seed Vault? Individuals cannot deposit seeds into the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. If you have seeds that you would like to save, we advise you to contact your national genebank or any other sustainable long term genebank near you and discuss securing your seeds there.
Such a genebank may choose to deposit a duplicate in the Seed Vault. Depositors who send material to Svalbard do so consistently with relevant national and international laws. Each depositing institution still owns and controls access to the seeds they have deposited. How long can the seeds stay alive in the Seed Vault? Different seeds and seedlots have different longevities. There are longevity differences among species, and among seedlots within species. Some of these differences are genetic, but seed longevity is also highly dependent on the quality of the seed, which varies with growing conditions and maturity, pest contamination and after-harvest management.
As these genebanks perform regular germination tests on their collections, they can work out when to send new seeds to the Seed Vault. Does the Seed Vault only contain seeds?
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault only holds species of importance for food and agriculture having so called orthodox seeds. These are seeds that can be dried to very low moisture contents and that will stay viable for many years at low temperatures.
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