“Noah’s Ark” for Plants Launched in Norway

Inside the Svalbard Vault

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, dubbed as “Noah’s Ark of plant life,” has been formally launched inside a mountain close to the town of Longyear-byen in Svalbard (a Norwegian island located 600 miles from the North Pole) to protect the world’s crop seeds from man made threats and natural disasters.

Svalbard Vault entrance

It was built 400 feet into the mountain and houses (for the time being) 100 million seeds gathered from more than 100 countries. To keep these seeds from aging, the vault will maintain a temperature of minus 18 degrees Celsius. The vault’s power will be run by a 10 kilowatt compressor. Maintaining this temperature should keep the seeds fresh for more than a thousand years. If in case the compressor shuts down, the mountain’s permafrost would still keep the seeds from aging for 200 years more.

The first day’s deposit comprised of 268,000 seed samples which filled 676 foil wrapped boxes. These first crop seeds vary from major Asian and African foods such as rice, maize (a type of corn), wheat, cowpea and sorghum, to widely used South American and European vegetables such as eggplant, lettuce, barley and potato.

Various government officials and experts from around the world attended this ground breaking ceremony. One of which was Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg who said: “Biological diversity is under threat from the forces of nature … and from the actions of man.” He considered the vault as an “insurance policy” for mankind.

Another spokesperson from the country added that: “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.”

Norway spearheaded the construction of the vault. It cost approximately 9.1 million U.S. dollars. It has the capacity to store 4.5 million seed types or approximately 2 billion seeds. Although Norway owns the vault itself, the seeds themselves are owned by the same country that deposited them.

There are other seed vaults around the globe but the Svalbard will be the most comprehensive due to its large capacity. It will be operated by the.

The Nobel Peace Prize winning environmentalist Professor Wangari Muta Maathai of Kenya placed the first seeds inside.