Svalbard Global Seed Vault
Bóveda Global de Semillas de Svalbard
- Date
- 26 de febrero de 2008 · confidence high
- Place
- Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway
- Credited to
- Government of Norway, Crop Trust and NordGen (Cary Fowler)
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
A chamber carved into rock beneath the permafrost that stores back-up copies of over a million seed samples from the world's gene banks. It works as insurance for crop diversity against wars, disasters and mistakes.
The seeds remain the property of the depositing banks; Norway only houses the boxes. Water ingress into the entrance tunnel in 2016 led to refurbishment.
What it led to
- first withdrawal, by ICARDA (Syria), in 2015
- an international network of seed back-ups
- debates on climate change and permafrost thaw affecting access