Doomsday vault cracked open
A ‘DOOMSDAY vault’ buried deep in the Arctic to preserve seeds of almost every crop on Earth in the event of a catastrophe has been opened earlier than expected.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a seed bank nestled in the Arctic Archipelago, was created to protect millions of food crops from climate change, wars and natural disasters, as a backup for humanity.
But officials this week confirmed scientists have withdrawn from the Norwegian government operated bank — known as the ‘doomsday vault’ — for the first time since it started in February, 2008.
The move comes after scientists ceased full operations at leading gene bank, the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in Aleppo, Syria, as a result of the bloody conflict in the war-torn country.
ICARDA was used to develop new strains of drought and heat resistant wheat.
In recent years, the scientists started recovering their critical inventory of seeds, sourced from around the Middle East and beyond, and safekeeping them beneath the Arctic ice, just 1,300 kilometres from the North Pole.
More at site.
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I never realized the right had been reserved to remove seeds. I thought the whole idea was that this would be a repository available to man in the future, if needed.
A ‘DOOMSDAY vault’ buried deep in the Arctic to preserve seeds of almost every crop on Earth in the event of a catastrophe has been opened earlier than expected.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a seed bank nestled in the Arctic Archipelago, was created to protect millions of food crops from climate change, wars and natural disasters, as a backup for humanity.
But officials this week confirmed scientists have withdrawn from the Norwegian government operated bank — known as the ‘doomsday vault’ — for the first time since it started in February, 2008.
The move comes after scientists ceased full operations at leading gene bank, the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in Aleppo, Syria, as a result of the bloody conflict in the war-torn country.
ICARDA was used to develop new strains of drought and heat resistant wheat.
In recent years, the scientists started recovering their critical inventory of seeds, sourced from around the Middle East and beyond, and safekeeping them beneath the Arctic ice, just 1,300 kilometres from the North Pole.
More at site.
____________________________________________________
I never realized the right had been reserved to remove seeds. I thought the whole idea was that this would be a repository available to man in the future, if needed.
