Newly waterproofed Arctic seed vault hits 1m samples

[nitpicker]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/25/newly-waterproofed-arctic-seed-vault-1m-samples-climate-change

Newly waterproofed Arctic seed vault hits 1m samples

Damian Carrington Environment editor

Tue 25 Feb 2020 00.01 GMT

The Arctic global seed vault has reached the milestone of having 1m varieties stored in its deep freeze. The new deposits are being made after unexpected flooding of its entrance tunnel in 2017 prompted an upgrade.

Seeds from 60,000 crop varieties from across the world are being placed in the vault to back up those held in other seed banks.

The €9m (£7.5m) underground facility in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard opened in 2008 as a “failsafe” store. But the unexpectedly rapid pace of global heating led to melting of the permafrost that had encased it.

Now, a €20m refurbishment by the Norwegian government means the vault is secure for the future and “absolutely watertight”, according to officials.

The destruction of nature means vital diversity of crops and their wild relatives are being lost, at a time when the impact of the climate emergency means new varieties are needed to cope with changing weather and pests. Seed banks can also be destroyed by power loss and war, as happened in Aleppo, Syria, making the Svalbard vault crucial.
Tuesday’s deposits, from 36 institutions, are the most diverse and include seeds of 27 wild plants from Prince Charles’s Highgrove estate as well as seeds of the candy roaster squash, which are being deposited by the Cherokee Nation in the US.

Wild emmer wheat, known as the “mother of wheat” when it was discovered in 1906, is being deposited by Haifa University in Israel, alongside potato varieties from Peru and other crops from Mongolia, Morocco, Myanmar and New Zealand. Each sample contains roughly 500 seeds.

The Svalbard vault, which is carved into solid rock, houses samples of about 1,050,000 crop varieties from 5,000 species. This represents two-fifths of the estimated 2.4m varieties in the world, and the vault has plenty of room to accommodate them.
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