An Arctic seed vault on Norway’s Spitsbergen island last week received the largest number of new samples from depositors since 2020, a custodian of the facility said recently, highlighting the struggle for food security and the threat of climate change. In denotes fear.
Installed inside the mountain to withstand disasters ranging from nuclear war to global warming, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault was launched in 2008 as a backup to the world’s gene banks that store the genetic code of thousands of plant species .
Billed as a doomsday vault protected by permafrost, the deposit has received specimens from around the world, and played a leading role between 2015 and 2019 in the reconstruction of seed collections damaged during the war in Syria.
“Climate change and conflict threaten infrastructure and food security for more than 700 million people in more than 75 countries around the world,” Stefan Schmitz, executive director of Crop Trust, said in a statement.
Among the new depositaries, Bolivia’s first contribution to the vault was made by the 400-year-old Universidad Mayor Real y Pontificia de San Francisco Javier de Chuquisaca, and was assembled by about 125 farming families from local communities.
“This deposit is beyond the protection of crops; it is about protecting our culture,” the Norway-funded Biodiversity for Opportunities, Livelihoods and Development project coordinator in Bolivia said in a statement.
Chad, another newcomer, submitted 1,145 samples of sesame, rice, maize and sorghum – all adapted to the country’s climate and vital to developing crops that can withstand rising temperatures and erratic rainfall.
The total of more than 30,000 new samples from 21 countries also included seeds of vegetables, legumes and herbs from the Federation of Agricultural Working Committees in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Located on a sparsely populated island between mainland Europe and the North Pole, the vault’s chambers are opened only two or three times a year to limit contact with the outside world.
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