I’ve been so many times and I’m still curious.”Īfter the Aleppo seed bank was destroyed in the Syrian civil war, the vault was used to replenish seeds for the first time by the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, a regional hub based in Aleppo to study crops from the cradle of civilization where agriculture first began. Then you see all of the boxes with seeds from all of these countries. “When you open the door, it’s -18C-the international standard for conserving seeds-which is very, very cold. All you can hear is yourself,” says Lise Lykke Steffensen, executive director of NordGen, which is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the vault. It has high ceilings and when you’re standing inside the mountain, there’s hardly any sound. Scientists say they hope people will learn more about their work through the virtual tour-without running the risk of falling prey to a polar bear. The seeds could hold answers to agricultural challenges posed by climate crisis, invasive species, pests, changes in rainfall patterns and rampant biodiversity loss are studied, and it opens three times a year to accept new deposits from other seed banks around the world. The deep-freeze, designed to last forever, is co-managed by the Norwegian government, the Crop Trust and NordGen, the genebank of the Nordic countries. “We need to protect them, secure them and to make sure that they are conserved in perpetuity.” Now, to celebrate the vault’s 15th anniversary, everyone is invited on a virtual tour to see inside the vast collection of tubers, rice, grains, and other seeds buried deep in the mountain behind five sets of metal doors. The Global Seed Vault in the Norwegian Arctic, which opened in 2008, is closed to the public and shrouded in mystery, the subject of numerous internet doomsday conspiracy theories. It is a monument to 12,000 years of human agriculture that aims to prevent the permanent loss of crop species after war, natural disaster or pandemic. Surrounded by snow, ice and the occasional polar bear, the facility houses 1.2 million seed samples from every corner of the planet as an insurance policy against catastrophe. Jutting out of the permafrost on a mountainside on Spitsbergen, in the Svalbard archipelago, the entrance to the world’s “doomsday” seed vault is worthy of any James Bond movie. This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. It has high ceilings and when you’re standing inside the mountain, there’s hardly any sound." NordGen
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