![]() ![]() The latest shipment will bring the number of seed varieties, stored in 3 underground alcoves at an optimum minus 18 degrees Celsius (-0.4 degrees Fahrenheit), to 1.05 million. “It’s more urgent than ever that we act now to protect this diversity before it really is too late,” he added. “It has proved to be an exhausting and often demoralizing task to persuade people of the utterly essential role played by all this diversity in maintaining vibrant, healthy ecosystems that sustain both people and our planet,” the Prince of Wales said in a statement. The new arrivals include staple crops such as wheat and rice, as well as wild varietes of European apple trees.Īlso among the seeds are beans, squash, and corn from the Cherokee Nation – the first Native American group to send crops to the vault – including their sacred White Eagle corn.īritain’s Prince Charles, who is known for his environmental advocacy, sent the seeds of 27 wild plants, including cowslips and orchids collected from the meadows of Highgrove, his country home. “Solutions that are vital for feeding a growing population and achieving a green transition,” she added.Ī total of 36 regional and international institutions have contributed to the 60,000 samples that were deposited on Tuesday. The head of the genetic bank of the Nordic nations, Lise Lykke Steffensen, said every single seed in the vault “holds potential solutions for sustainable agriculture.” ![]() “The large scope of today’s seed deposit reflects worldwide concern about the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss on food production.” “As the pace of climate change and biodiversity loss increases, there is new urgency surrounding efforts to save food crops at risk of extinction,” said Stefan Schmitz, who manages the reserve as head of the Crop Trust. The “Noah’s Ark” of food crops is set up to preserve plants that can feed a growing population facing climate change. Mounting concern over climate change and species loss is driving groups worldwide to add their seeds to the collection inside a mountain near Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen Island in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, about 1,300 kilometers (about 800 miles) from the North Pole. "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, head of the Global Crop Diversity Trust.LONGYEARBYEN, Norway – A “doomsday vault” nestled deep in the Arctic received 60,000 new seed samples on Tuesday, February 25, including Prince Charles’ cowslips and Cherokee sacred corn, increasing stocks of the world’s agricultural bounty in case of global catastrophe. 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. The vault is to be officially inaugurated on Tuesday, less than year after crews started drilling in Norway's Svalbard archipelago, about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the North Pole. 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 Svalbard Global Seed Vault is seen Monday Feb. Food and Agriculture Organization and Biodiversity International, a Rome-based research group. The collecting of seeds is funded by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which was founded by the U.N. Other countries can deposit seeds without charge and reserve the right to withdraw them upon need. It paid $9.1 million for the construction. Norway owns the vault in Svalbard, a frigid archipelago about 620 miles (990 kilometers) from the North Pole. To mark the opening, guests carried the first 75 boxes of seeds down a red carpet through the steel and concrete-lined tunnel to the vaults.
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