World seed vault in Norway [View all]

[riverwalker]

http://www.gpb.org/news/2012/03/04/the-ultimate-in-heirloom-wheat-arrives-at-seed-vault

The Ultimate In Heirloom Wheat Arrives At Seed Vault

A few days ago, amid darkness and freezing winds, thousands of small packages of seeds were carried into an underground storage vault on a remote Arctic island. That vault holds a growing collection of seeds from all the different kinds of crops around the world that humans grow for food.

The seeds 740,000 samples and counting are stored inside a mountain on a group of islands called Svalbard, which is legally part of Norway, but is located far out in the Arctic Ocean, just 600 miles from the North Pole.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault along with dozens of other, less-secure collections around the world is supposed to preserve a vital part of the world's botanical gene pool; in this case, all the varieties of corn or peas or tomatoes that have disappeared from farmers' fields.
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