The Svalbard Global Seed Vault
Across the Barents Sea and more than 1270 miles north of Oslo lies the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Built inside a mountain, this facility provides ultimate protection to arguably the world's most important natural resource, the diversity of our agricultural crops that underpins the current and future food security of every nation. Here seed banks from around the world store duplicate samples of their collections as an insurance policy against natural disaster, war, fire and flood, and their own equipment failures and accidents. For the crops and their genetic diversity in the Seed Vault, it is also the ultimate insurance policy against extinction.
The Seed Vault contains samples of more than 1,350,000 different crop types, collected originally from virtually every country in the world. It is this diversity that will allow and facilitate agriculture's adaptation to climate change and its increasing productivity.
A partnership between the Norwegian government, the Nordic Genetic Resources Center and the Global Crop Diversity Trust, the Seed Vault provides free conservation services to countries and public institutions. Depositing institutions retain sole ownership of their seed deposits which will be repatriated to the depositor – and only the depositor – upon request such as when the depositor has suffered a loss of their collection or part of it for whatever reason.
Former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon describes the Seed Vault an "inspirational symbol of peace and food security for the entire humanity."
Founded
2008
Location
Svalbard, Norway
Seeds Stored
Seed samples: 1,356,591
Species: 6,378
Countries of origin: 233