"Noah's Ark" for Seeds to Open in Winter 2008

Final plans have been announced in Norway for the Svalbard International Seed Vault, and construction is to begin in March 2007 on a frozen island near the North Pole. The Norwegian Government and the Global Crop Diversity Trust have developed this vault built into frozen rock to ensure the safety of the agricultural heritage of the planet by storing seeds from all nations. The Vault will open in Winter 2008, after the facility is finished in September 2007.

Dr. Cary Fowler, the Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, said in the Trust's press release that "this design takes us one step closer to guaranteeing the safety of the world's most important natural resource." The Trust is a co-sponsor of the Seed Vault, and is also making funding available to transport the seeds from every country that wants to become involved in the seed bank. Dr. Fowler adds that "every day that passes we are losing crop biodiversity. We must conserve the seeds that will allow agriculture to adapt to challenges such as climate change and crop disease."

Though the Environmental News Service reports that the Seed Vault is being built to ensure the preservation of the world's agriculture against such reasons as a nuclear war or gene pollution from genetically modified crops, but the construction plans and the Vault's site seem to be more concerned with rising global temperatures. The Vault is being built 426 feet above sea level, to protect the Vault from the worst cases scenarios of Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets melting, which could account for 23 and 200 feet increase in sea levels, respectively.

Also, the Vault is being built nearly 400 feet into frozen rock on the Arctic island of Svalbard, 620 miles north of Norway. The in-ground facilities, in the form of two chambers, will provide back-up refrigeration in case of a disruption in electricity to the Seed Vault. Building the Vault so far into the rock and permafrost should ensure that despite the most dire estimations of global temperature rise the permafrost on the island should withstand the melt, and the rocky bed for the Vault will ensure stability.

Security for the Vault was considered in the designing of the facility. There will be an exterior entrance to the Vault, that will be visible and noticeable from the small village of Longyearbyen, in hopes that if anything suspicious were to occur, the locals would notice and report it. There is also video-monitoring, reinforced concrete walls, and no windows into the inner facility to ensure safety for the projected 3 million seeds that will be preserved within the Vault.

Terje Riis-Johansen, the Norwegian Minister of Agriculture and Food, hopes that "the interest that is shown in the Svalbard Arctic Seed Vault will create increased awareness for conservation and sustainable use of our genetic resources."