Svalbard Global Seed Vault
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard Archipelago, serves as a secure backup facility for the preservation of seeds from food crops worldwide. Established in response to global concerns over genetic resource preservation, the vault was officially opened in 2008 and is designed to safeguard seeds against both natural and human-made disasters. It was constructed with funding from the Global Crop Diversity Trust and is managed by NordGen and the Norwegian government. The facility can hold up to 4.5 million seed samples, with over 1.2 million already stored as of late 2022.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault operates under the principle that seeds deposited remain the property of the depositing country or institution. Designed to be virtually indestructible, its location and construction methods ensure that seeds remain at a stable temperature even in situations where power may be lost. The vault has garnered attention as a "Doomsday Vault," reflecting its role as a last line of defense for global food security. Notably, it has already been utilized for seed withdrawals, such as when the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas retrieved samples during the Syrian civil war. Overall, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault represents a critical effort in preserving agricultural biodiversity for future generations.
Svalbard Global Seed Vault
- DATE: Opened 2008
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a facility on a remote Arctic island designed to preserve seeds from both common and rare varieties of food crops and to act as a backup for the many gene banks already in existence around the world.
Background
In 1983, the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard Archipelago was chosen as the site for a gene bank (facility for preserving genetic material) by the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen). Within a few years, several other international organizations had expressed interest in the project, but a dispute over the ownership of genetic resources led to a delay. Not until 2004 did the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) pave the way for resumption of the project, which came to be envisioned as a backup to other gene banks. In 2005, planning for the vault resumed, while construction, the cost of which was borne by Norway, began in 2007. The Seed Vault opened the following year.
The Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT) funds the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV), while NordGen and the Norwegian government manage its operation. Space in the vault is available free of charge to all governments and institutions, and the GCDT pays packaging and shipping costs for developing countries. Seeds must have originated in the depositor’s country or be freely available under provisions of the ITPGRFA, but in all cases remain the property of the depositors.
The vault itself lies about 130 meters above sea level and is built into a geologically stable hillside near the settlement of Longyearbyen. It consists of a portal projecting from the hillside, an access tunnel 93.3 meters long, an operations office lying near the far end of the tunnel, and three separate vaults. Each vault is about 27 meters long and is lined with shelving designed to hold plastic boxes containing airtight seed envelopes. Temperature in the vaults is maintained at -18° Celsius.
Impact on Resource Use
The SGSV received its first seeds in January 2008 (a month before it officially opened) and is large enough to hold 4.5 million samples. Each sample will contain some five hundred seeds, meaning that the vault’s ultimate capacity is approximately 2.25 billion seeds. As of 2024, the SGSV had more than 1.3 million samples in storage. The vault will also hold genetic material from plants that do not reproduce by seed.
It was estimated that, as of 2024, there were 1,750 gene banks in the world, holding the seeds of about 7.4 million varieties of plants. However, most of these facilities were vulnerable to natural or humanmade threats. Dubbed the “Doomsday Vault” by the media, the SGSV is designed as the ultimate backup to these facilities and is virtually indestructible. It is high enough above sea level to be safe from the danger of global warming, and the temperature of the permafrost and rock into which it is built guarantees that its contents will remain frozen at -3° Celsius even in the event of loss of electricity.
In October 2015 the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) became the first organization to withdraw seeds from the SGSV. ICARDA withdrew 38,073 of its seed samples after its facilities in Syria were occupied by armed groups during the nation’s civil war, which began in 2011. The withdrawn seeds, which included types of wheat, barley, lentils, and chickpeas that originated in the Fertile Crescent, were sent to ICARDA’s backup locations in Lebanon and Morocco with the intention of producing more samples for deposit in SGSV.
Bibliography
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Craig, Joe. Safeguarding Water and Food Supplies. New York: Rosen, 2013. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 28 Dec. 2015.
Goldenberg, Suzanne. “Global Seed Vault Dispatches First Ever Grain Shipment.” Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 19 Oct. 2015. Web. 28 Dec. 2015.
Govt. of Norway, Ministry of Agriculture and Food. “Svalbard Global Seed Vault.” Government.no. Government.no, n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2015.
Jamieson, Alastair. “Syria War Forces First Withdrawal from Svalbard Global Seed Vault.” NBC News. NBCNews.com, 25 Sept. 2015. Web. 28 Dec. 2015.
McPherson, Sara B. “Preparing for DOOMSDAY.” Science World 2 Feb. 2015: 8–11. Canadian Reference Centre. Web. 28 Dec. 2015.
Nierenberg, Amelia. "The World's Doomsday Plant Vault Gets Thousands of New Seeds." The New York Times, 3 Nov. 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/world/europe/svalbard-seed-vault-deposit-climate.html. Accessed 6 Jan. 2025.
“Two Newcomers Join Svalbard Global Seed Vault for Final Opening of 2022.” Svalbard Global Seed Vault, 12 Oct. 2022, www.seedvault.no/news/two-newcomers-join-svalbard-global-seed-vault-for-final-opening-of-2022/. Accessed 6 Jan. 2025.
“What Is a Genebank?” Crop Trust, 13 Sept. 2022, www.croptrust.org/news-events/news/what-is-a-genebank/. Accessed 6 Jan. 2024.