The bank that holds all the world's seeds
Environment — di Redazione
In Norway there is a place where the Earth's agricultural biodiversity is kept safe. This is why many call it the Noah's Ark of seeds.
The bank that holds all the world's seeds
In Norway there is a place where the Earth's agricultural biodiversity is kept safe. This is why many call it the Noah's Ark of seeds.
On the island of Spitsbergen, in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, approximately one thousand kilometres north of Norway, there is a place where all the world's seeds are stored and kept safe — a kind of Noah's Ark of seeds for a future, not so distant, in which it will be necessary to rediscover varieties that have been lost due to, among other things, climate change. The story and photos of this truly remarkable bank can be found in the article I semi di tutto il mondo si custodiscono alle Svalbard on ExpoNet, the in-depth magazine on food and nutrition of Expo Milan 2015.
It has been nicknamed the "doomsday seed vault", the safe for seeds for when judgement day arrives. Those who wanted it and who look after it, however, disagree with this definition. The official name is Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the global underground seed depository in Svalbard created in 2008 to store the greatest possible variety of seeds from every part of the Earth, and to preserve agricultural biodiversity.
Read the article and view the photos on ExpoNet