The Norwegian Government decided in 2006 to establish a global seed vault at Svalbard, as a contribution to preserving the world’s agricultural biodiversity. The seed storage will function as a global security storage to safeguard the agricultural biological diversity, particularly crops of great significance for the food supply. The storage will be especially important for developing countries with a special need to secure the accumulation of their biological material, and will function as a supplement to their national and regional gene banks.
Gene banks are vulnerable to threats such as civil strife, war and natural catastrophes. Locating the seed vault at Svalbard, a group of islands nearly a thousand kilometres north of mainland Norway, will ensure the safety of the seeds. In terms of political stability the place is very secure, and the permafrost and thick rock will ensure that even without electricity, the samples will remain frozen.
Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a project of cooperation between the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the Ministry of the Environment, with the Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT) as one of the main partners. Construction is due to be completed at the end of October 2007, and the official opening will take place in the town of Longyearbyen February 26th 2008 with the participation of Norway’s Prime Minister, H. E. Mr. Jens Stoltenberg, and Nobel Peace Price Laureate Wangari Mathaai.
For more information, contact Julian Laird at Croptrust (info@croptrust.org), or visit the web sites www.svalbard-global-seedvault.no and www.croptrust.org