7/29/2023 0 Comments Doomsday vault upgrade![]() Svalbard now contains more than 1 million seed varieties. The tribe holds their own seed bank of heirloom seeds and this is the first time they have contributed to the global backup seed vault. The Cherokee Nation made a deposit of nine seed species that predate European colonization. New seeds from the United States, Ireland, Thailand, Ethiopia, and more were tucked away for safekeeping. The new upgrades were celebrated with the largest one-time seed deposit in the vault’s history when more than 60,000 new seed varieties from all over the world were recently deposited. If temperature and other sustainability measures remain constant, the vault could protect seeds for up to 1,000 years in the event of global disaster. The importance of having a backup vault for the World’s most precious seeds cannot be overstated, and Norway’s Ministry of Agriculture and Food spent almost 20 million dollars to upgrade the facility over the last few years. Trenches were dug and new waterproof walls were put in place, highlighting the dangers of climate change and the vulnerability to areas once remote and frigid.īouncing Back. But what was meant to be a fortress of isolation and self-sustainability had to be watched 24 hours a day to ensure no more water got in. Fortunately, water did not enter the vault itself and the seeds themselves were undamaged. Higher than normal temperatures melted some of the permafrost in 2017 causing the vault’s entryway to flood (See Carl Kruse Svalbard blog post on the incident). It faces avalanches, floods, and is warming faster than any other spot on the planet due to global warming. Longyearbyen, the remote home of the seed vault, has been plagued with climate change-related woes. The location isn’t without fault, however. 600 miles from the mainland with low temperatures, buried in layers of ice. The site of the vault was picked because it was deemed the safest place on Earth to store seeds. The intake, care, and testing of seeds is managed jointly by the Norwegian government (which paid for construction of the vault), the Crop Trust, and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen). Seeds don’t last forever, so they are periodically tested and replaced as needed. It has also been called a Noah’s Ark and compared to an airplane’s “black box” because it serves as a backup gene bank for seeds. There are small seed banks all over the world, but Svalbard Seed Vault is the backup plan. ![]() A lack of diversity in our calorie-enriched foods means we are at risk of going hungry if hit with catastrophic weather, for example. Food fact: although innumerable seeds and crops dot the planet, 50% of the global diet consists of just three: rice, corn, wheat. Nothing lasts forever and hopefully we will be gone before the planet undergoes a crisis that eliminates agriculture, but you have to think ahead. How Can A Seed Vault Save Us From Starvation? “Perpeutal Repurcussion” under the Northern Lights. Practitioners of geocaching consider the caches around Svalbard top on their list. The now iconic entrance to the vault - which is not far from the airport - is a top selfie spot. The streets have no names and those venturing beyond the settlement keep a rifle nearby due to marauding polar bears, putting one’s mind to the world of a Philip Pullman novel, what with golden compasses and armored bears. ![]() A remote mystique swirls about the place. You get to Svalbard via the Longyearbyen airport, which is the planet’s northernmost with scheduled commercial flights. Svalbard has long been one of my Top 10 favorite nonprofit projects. ![]() Here is the complete PMI list: 50 most influential projects of the last 50 years. The vault has been hailed by the Project Management Institute (PMI) as one of the 50 most influential projects in the world, along with the World Wide Web, the Euro, Netflix, the Intel processor, the Harry Potter books, and other marvels of human ingenuity and effort. The idea is if we ever need to restart society these precious plant species will not be lost and our food diversity is protected. In 2008, Norway gifted the world the Svalbard Seed Vault, also known as the “Doomsday Vault.” This self-sustaining facility, carved into a mountainside and surrounded by permafrost, protects heirloom seeds from future apocalyptic conditions.
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