CorrespondentRFIand our good friend Gelia Pevzner visited there recently. I remember her enthusiastic comments on Facebook about this trip. And today - a detailed report.
The bank project on the Svalbard archipelago, carried out by Norway under the auspices of the UN and costing $9 million, operates under the control of three organizations. This is the Norwegian government through the local administration of the Svalbard archipelago (Statsbük), the Global Crop Diversity Trust and the Nordic Seed Bank (NordGen).
860,000 types of seeds are obtained from more than 60 different organizations, national or international (there are 11 such international banks in the world, and most have already sent the seeds to storage). The banks collect and store seeds from all over the world, with spare samples sent to Svalbard. Here they are stored in sealed bags at a temperature of -18°C. And even if the refrigeration units that maintain a constant temperature fail, it will take at least several weeks before the temperature rises by just three degrees. During this time, the seeds sleeping in the boxes can be saved.
The Svalbard archipelago and its part, the island of Spitsbergen, were chosen as the site of the World Seed Vault also because it is a seismically quiet zone and, according to the Spitsbergen Treaty, signed in 1920, a demilitarized territory. Perhaps the most peaceful place on Earth.
Twice a year the Warehouse opens its doors to receive new arrivals. Only on these days are a few journalists and researchers allowed to enter. The storage facility does not accept private tourists: unnecessary visits are too much big risk for seeds. On October 18, the seeds were brought to Svalbard by the International Rice Research Center IRRI (Philippines), IITA (Institute of Tropical Agronomy, Nigeria), CIP (International Potato Center, Kenya), CGN (Center for Genetic Resources, the Netherlands) and ICRISAT (International Institute of Agriculture desert and semi-desert zones, India).
On a building embedded in the mountains of Longyearbyen, a green beacon is constantly burning in the polar night. From here, from above, both the ocean and the only airport in Spitsbergen are clearly visible. The plane bringing the seeds lands. Half an hour later, the car with the boxes begins to slowly climb towards the storage facility along an icy mountain road.
The door, behind which few people have been able to visit, is opened by a representative of the Trust. For her long corridor and a lock chamber separating the entrance from the main premises. There are hooks with miners' helmets on the wall - without them, entry into the vault is prohibited; the vaults are covered with ice. Another door - and finally storage. The first thing that catches your eye is a thermometer frozen at the “-18” point, everything else is similar to any archive in the world: metal shelves, containers on them - plastic and cardboard, but they do not contain documents, but seed samples in bags. In the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty, the princess and her courtiers, cooks and maids fell asleep in a hundred-year sleep. Here sleep ancient wheat and barley, all 5000 varieties of potatoes, future rice fields and olive groves.
There are three such rooms in the storage facility. One of them is almost full, there are 860,000 types of seeds, and there is enough space for 3-4 million. That is, theoretically, a seed bank on Svalbard could store everything existing species agricultural plants.
Lack of oxygen slows down the metabolic activity and aging of seeds; some of them can be stored for 50-100 years without loss of quality, some for a thousand years, and some even longer.
Along the rows we set off on a trip around the world: China, Australia, Canada, Nigeria, Peru... The trust employee accompanying us draws our attention to the containers that arrived from Russia, and next to them are exactly the same boxes from Ukraine (“We have eternal peace here!” "). The two Koreas are also neighbors. Several boxes say ICARDA, these are seeds from Syria. Unlike Palmyra, they were saved from the Islamic State.
Syria - Norway - Syria
A storage facility containing the seeds of thousands of human-cultivated plants was destroyed when the city of Aleppo and the surrounding area entered the zone controlled by a terrorist organization. Syria, part of the Fertile Crescent, is home to wheat, barley, legumes, olive and almond trees. ICARDA stores seeds of ancient varieties mentioned in the Bible. The head of the institute's genetic resources department, Doctor of Sciences Ahmed Amri, said that the seeds rescued from Aleppo were sent to Spitsbergen for two-hundred-year storage. About 20 percent of the 120,000 to 130,000 different varieties of barley, wheat, corn or chickpeas were then transported to Morocco and Lebanon at the Trust's expense so that scientists could continue to plant them.
In Svalbard we met with the Global Fund's CFO, Mikael Koch. He explained why the seeds need to be planted and clarified issues regarding ownership of the specimens stored in the Svalbard bank.
Mikael Koch: The owner of each sample is the organization from which it was received. This is the same as if you go to a bank and rent a safe deposit box there. The key is yours, and you remain the owner of what is there and can take it away at any time; no one has the right to do this without your permission. The same principle applies here.
- Why store copies here in Svalbard if there are local seed banks in the world?
The seeds are stored in different places, starting with the farms where they are grown, we call this on-site conservation. Farmers store their own seeds and those of their neighbors. Most countries also have their own state seed banks, and there are also regional repositories. Next come international banks, they are the ones who simplify the process of exchanging seeds; they can make them available to scientists, farmers, and seed producers. This is vital for improving the quality of seeds; all improved plant varieties are obtained by crossing plants from different areas.
Our repository is additional protection for the collections of gene banks that I spoke about. Anything can happen if, for example, the electricity goes out for a day. Seeds stored in a jar may spoil. Social unrest, earthquakes, tsunamis can happen, problems happen and can affect the gene bank. This has been seen before, so we play the role of an insurer, storing spare copies for the gene banks of the world.
A seed conservation system needs, firstly, to be stored locally, where the crop is usually grown, that is, by the farmer, and only then - outside this area. Both copies are needed because farmers cannot store seeds for long periods under predictable conditions. At least, if we talk about storing all existing plants, this is simply impossible. A controlled environment is required, like in gene banks, with strict management rules and stable temperatures. And, of course, we need peasants who use the seeds, this is a looped system. Farmers with a variety of seeds from their fields share them with others through local or national gene banks. From there, the seeds go to international banks, who send spare copies here to Svalbard.
This is how the peasants from South America have access to seeds from Asia or Africa and other places. That is, there must be international banks with equipment for freezing seeds, plus national and local storage facilities, while farmers maintain diversity in their fields. These two sides must complement each other, and neither can work on its own.
Each depositor maintains similar storage conditions; checks are carried out regularly national banks to make sure the seeds are still viable. If the viability of the seeds has decreased, they can take the seeds from us, update their materials and then send us new copies.
- You have a program of working with sponsors. Among them are seed producers. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, for example, are involved in the seed business and own shares of Monsanto Corporation, which has raised concerns and criticism. I'd love to hear your answer.
Our foundation's job is to fund a system of cultural diversity. The reserve is a critical element of the international system. We have donors who provide us with financial assistance through our foundation. The idea is that the fund should be large enough to finance the largest seed banks and reserve in Norway without any time limit from the income from the funds it manages. On this moment the fund has not yet grown to this point, in connection with this we cooperate with governments around the world. In April next year There will be a big conference, the purpose of which is for everyone to get together and discuss this issue. Because we can succeed in this regard, it is doable. We may well leave behind a legacy by preserving these materials indefinitely.
The Global Crop Diversity Trust is a public-private partnership and we accept donations from government agencies we partner with, as well as from private foundations owned by wealthy individuals or companies. This was the plan from the very beginning. Today, our donors include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation you mentioned and several seed companies, not including Monsanto. From them we receive less than 5% of total funding. The important question here is who then uses these seeds. They are used by farmers, scientists, universities, but seed producers should also have access to them. They are engaged in breeding, crossing and obtaining seeds of certain varieties.
I think your question is leading to the topic of GMOs. How the seeds are produced depends on local laws in each country. We at the International Trust and seed banks do not store seeds from genetically modified species. We store a wide variety of naturally obtained seeds. Further, what users do with their genetic material depends on the laws of a particular country. So we take a neutral position on this issue, it all depends on what legislation a particular country adopts on this issue.
Doomsday Vault
The Svalbard vault has an intriguing name: Noah's Ark. It is difficult to get here, and Mikael Koch reminds us that journalists here often recall James Bond films. But the Repository also has a serious scientific purpose - to promote the conservation of biodiversity. The Paris Climate Conference in December reminds us of the difficulties of this task in the context of climate change.
Climate and biodiversity have a long history together. Over the course of Earth's history, some plant species have disappeared while others have appeared. Change in concentration carbon dioxide, fluctuations in temperature and precipitation have led to the development of adaptation in plants. Climate influenced changes in the zones of plant existence and the very structure of ecosystems. The diversity of climatic zones also led to the emergence of a diversity of flora: about 6,000 plant species appeared on earth.
But plants, in turn, began to influence the climate, in particular, air humidity and temperature at local levels. Plants, in particular, stabilize oxygen and CO2 levels.
In a warming climate, this interdependence is even stronger. A change in just one parameter (for example, temperature) can lead to one plant species developing more actively to the detriment of other species. Changes in CO2 concentration affect the mechanisms of photosynthesis, plant life cycles (flowering, fruiting, etc.) can lengthen and slow down, and this is already a problem for agriculture (too early flowering plants may be susceptible to late frosts). Finally, some plants may begin to migrate north or south following their usual conditions, while others simply will not be able to adapt to new conditions and will disappear.
In 2006, under the auspices of the Norwegian government, a global seed bank appeared on the island of Spitsbergen, which over the 10 years of its existence has collected almost a million plant samples. Seeds are stored in case of a sharp decline biological diversity on the planet, it's easier to survive after global catastrophe. The vault has been called the "Doomsday Vault" and is one of the largest in the world. Inspired by the successfully implemented idea of such a “bank,” the Norwegians decided to build another one to store backup data from the field of culture: films, books, documents and music, and called it the “Arctic World Archive.” But ironically, the project was dubbed the second “Doomsday Vault” - to make it easier to remember.
What it is?
Doomsday Vaults are man-made tunnels in the mountains of Spitsbergen, Norway, where plant seeds are stored. The first bunker appeared there back in 2006, and it was expanded for several more years - now the depth of the first storage facility reaches 120 meters. Each country received a cell for storing seeds in a bank, and in total the storage facility can accommodate up to 4.5 million samples.
The second bunker was opened on March 28, 2017, located near the first in an abandoned coal mine. The Norwegian repositories are not the only ones in the world, there are approximately 1,400 of them, but many are simply unsafe and do not hold enough samples. And some have already been wiped off the face of the earth, for example, Iraq and Afghanistan lost several due to the war, and a bank in the Philippines was destroyed by a powerful typhoon.
Why in Norway?
It was the Norwegians who were the first to propose building a storage facility - the project was presented back in 2004 by the executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, Dr. Cary Fowler. He insisted that humanity needed a reserve fund to store rare plant seeds from all over the world. As a result, the project was supported by the UN and $9 million was allocated to create “the most secure bunker in the world.” According to the project documentation, the site for construction was selected according to several criteria, such as climate, tectonic activity and the likelihood of becoming inaccessible due to global warming. Despite the inconsistency of the last point (the bunker is still located in the Arctic), the island of Spitsbergen became an ideal option: the bunker was erected at an altitude of 130 m above sea level, deep in the mountain, and the temperature in these places does not rise above 3.5 degrees Celsius. The plus is low level tectonic activity and developed infrastructure on the island.
How does the Doomsday Vault work?
The shelter is constantly maintained at a temperature of -18 degrees Celsius thanks to refrigeration units powered by coal mined directly on the island. Little oxygen enters the shelter, and together with the low temperature, this ensures low metabolic activity for the seeds and slows down aging. Thus, if refrigeration units support desired temperature, the “shelf life” of seeds increases to a thousand years. But even if it is not possible to maintain sub-zero temperatures, thanks to climatic conditions the samples will be useful for about 500 years. The seeds are stored under several “locks”: first they are sealed in special envelopes (500 pieces each), then they are packed in four-layer plastic bags and placed in metal containers, which are already sorted on shelves.
But the second repository, which houses the digital library, works a little differently. The temperature there is maintained at 0 degrees Celsius. To save any kind of data, you need to contact the main investor, the technology company Piql, which in turn helps turn digital information to analog. To do this, specialists use light-sensitive film - as the company says, it’s something like “turning information into huge QR codes.” In parallel with storing the information itself, Piql also included instructions in the bunker for turning an analog library back into a digital one.
How much of a bunker is a “bunker”?
The creators of the banks say that they can easily survive a direct hit from a nuclear warhead. Both vaults have thick steel walls and gates, and the premises go 120 meters deep into the mountain. The banks are also equipped with surveillance systems (cameras and sensors), although vault employees say that during the entire existence of the first bunker there was not a single attempt of illegal entry. The greatest danger here is the polar bears that attack people, of which there are quite a lot on the island.
Since the construction of the bunker, accidents have become more frequent, mainly involving bears, so all employees are first trained to handle firearms - even if it is a temporary and not very long business trip.
And they don't have any problems?
During construction, the creators thought that the preserved seeds would not have to be opened for a long time. However, already in 2015, Syria (which participated in the project and gave the seeds for storage) asked for its specimens back - due to the war, their seed storage was destroyed, so they needed plant varieties suitable for growing in an arid climate. But main problem It was not a premature “opening”, but a gradually decreasing activity of the participating countries. For example, over the past seven years, Italy has provided only two samples of crops for storage in the bank, while China and Japan have not transferred any, but only promised to do so someday. The reason is simple - Norway refused to pay for the delivery of seeds from the participating country to the island at its own expense.
Interestingly, even during the construction of the storage facility, a theory emerged according to which the creators and governments of the participating countries supposedly know in advance about the impending disaster, so they invest money in a shelter to preserve the “chosen ones” of life on the planet.
TASS DOSSIER. 10 years ago, on February 26, 2008, the grand opening of the World Seed Vault took place on the island of Western Spitsbergen near the city of Longyearbyen (Norway).
The goal of the project is to preserve the seed material of all agricultural plants existing in the world in case of natural or man-made disasters.
Story
The world's first seed bank, a special fund for storing seeds, was created at the suggestion of the Soviet plant breeder Pyotr Lisitsyn: he managed to interest the head of the Soviet state, Vladimir Lenin, in this idea. He signed the corresponding decree “On seed production” on June 13, 1921. In accordance with the decree, the State Variety Fund was created. In the 1920s, the fund developed as a state reserve in case of shortage of seed material. However, already in the 1930s, at the All-Union (now All-Russian) Institute of Plant Growing, under the leadership of Academician Nikolai Vavilov, a collection of seeds for breeding began to form, which included samples collected by the scientist in different countries peace. This seed bank survived the siege of Leningrad in 1941-1944 and the death of Vavilov himself in the camp in 1943.
After World War II, similar projects were launched in other countries around the world. In 1979, the Scandinavian countries created a common seed bank - Nordic GeneBank. In 1984, one of the abandoned mines in Spitsbergen was chosen for its storage.
In 1989, consultations began between the Norwegian government, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the International Council for Plant Genetic Diversity on the creation of an international repository based on GeneBank. However, then the project could not be implemented due to disagreements about the principles of its financing. They returned to this idea again in 2004. This time, the Norwegian authorities decided to fully pay for the construction and operation of the complex.
Work on the construction of the World Seed Vault began on June 19, 2006. In January 2008, seeds from GeneBank were transferred to it. The official opening took place on February 26 of the same year in the presence of Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg (now NATO Secretary General), European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and FAO Secretary General Jacques Diouf.
A new tunnel to the storage facility is currently being constructed as the original entrance has begun to be flooded with groundwater due to global warming and melting permafrost.
Characteristics
The storage facility is located in an abandoned coal mine at a depth of 120 m underground and at an altitude of 130 m above sea level, which guarantees its survival in the event of a direct hit nuclear bomb or when sea levels rise as a result of global warming. The storage facility is located in the permafrost zone (the distance to the North Pole is 1309 km), the temperature inside is naturally maintained at minus 3.5 degrees Celsius, and it is artificially cooled to minus 18 degrees, which is optimal for storing seeds. In addition, there are no earthquakes in Svalbard.
Seeds are stored in sealed multi-layer envelopes folded into containers.
The total area of the storage facility is about 1 thousand square meters. A horizontal tunnel leads into it, the entrance to which is decorated with an installation by the Norwegian sculpture Daiveki Sann.
The cost of the project was $9 million. In 2016, the cost of operating the repository was estimated at $240 thousand, the bulk of these funds were received from various international organizations, including the Global Fund for Crop Diversity. In turn, among its main sponsors is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Storage
In February 2018, the number of seeds contained in the storage facility reached 983 thousand (total capacity 4.5 million). According to the principles of the project, the largest national or supranational agricultural institutes in the world send reserve seed material to it: currently 73 organizations use its services. They own all rights to the stored material. At the same time, the Norwegian government assumes all costs for storing samples and transporting them to Svalbard (sending to Oslo airport is carried out at the expense of the organizers-depositors themselves).
All-Russian Institute of Plant Growing named after. N.I. Vavilova sent 5 thousand 278 seeds to the World Repository (as of the end of 2016). Moreover, the most seed material (more than 100 thousand units) was received from the International Center for the Improvement of Corn and Wheat (CIMMYT, Mexico), International Institute Rice Research Institute (IRRI, Philippines) and International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropical Zones (ICRISAT, India).
Owners of seeds can request them back. The first time envelopes from the Global Repository had to be opened occurred in 2012 at the request of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). Until 2012, it was based in Aleppo, however, due to the outbreak civil war in Syria, it was decided to urgently relocate him to Beirut (Libya). At the same time, some of the seeds could not be evacuated - the shortage had to be replenished from Spitsbergen.
Construction of the entrance to the seed storageIn the 20th century, humanity did everything to ensure that their descendants had something to do in the next 200 years. The emergence of nuclear weapons, large-scale man-made disasters, global climate change associated with the melting of ice at the poles - together or individually, these reasons can cause irreversible consequences for the earth's vegetation. Scientists have decided that the inhabitants of our planet should be able to quickly restore lost species in order to provide the usual air composition and food for the entire population.
Login to the vaultIn the second half of the 20th century, buildings guaranteeing the safety of seeds were built in all developed countries of the world. The Svalbard project became a fundamentally new step in the development of a well-thought-out idea. According to the authors, who have calculated all the options for the development of human history, the repository should be something like a bank room with cells where each state will place duplicate seeds from its national funds. If a disaster occurs in the plant’s homeland, there will always be hope for northern reserves. The idea was highly appreciated by international financial funds and together with the Norwegian government they invested almost $10 million in it. Construction began in 2006, and already in 2008 the storage facility received the first batch of seeds.
Why Spitsbergen?
There were two reasons for choosing the island - geographical, more significant, and political. The climatic disadvantages of the archipelago turned into advantages when predicting the success of the project. In permafrost conditions, due to which Svalbard does not even have its own cemetery, it is easier to ensure the safety of reserves in the event of a breakdown of all equipment and lower energy costs for servicing equipment. The facility was built at an altitude of 130 m above sea level. This ensures that a potential global flood, triggered by melted ice in the Arctic and Antarctic, will bypass it. The region lies outside the seismic hazard zone, so earthquakes also do not threaten the reinforced concrete bunker. The western coast of Spitsbergen is located outside the zones comfortable for people to live, but it is not as far from the densely populated centers of civilization as, for example, the northern regions of Russia, and even in the event of a transport collapse it will not be difficult to get to it.
Room where seeds are stored
From a political point of view, Svalbard is ideal for international projects. Formally belonging to Norway, the island received special status back in 1920. Since then, its subsoil can be developed by about 50 states that have become parties to the treaty. Due to the difficult climate, only Norwegians and Russians are now among those wishing to mine coal here, but many years of experience in international cooperation can be used to implement a new project.
Object design
The natural body of the storage facility was a rock; the hermetically sealed entrance to it was reinforced with meter-thick reinforced concrete walls that would withstand even a direct hit from a nuclear warhead. To get inside, to a depth of 120 meters, the guest needs to go through a lock chamber. Then the visitor, having passed through the concrete corridor, is greeted by spacious halls where he will experience a year-round temperature shock of −18 °C. Constantly switched on refrigeration units help to achieve such indicators. In the event of a simultaneous breakdown of all equipment, the temperature will only rise slightly in a few weeks, so the seeds will retain the ability to germinate until people get to them. Each country has its own section in the storage facility; work in it can only be done with official permission from the authorities of the “investor” state. Seeds, wrapped in foil, are placed in plastic bags and then packed into containers placed on racks. Motion sensors monitor any actions of the people inside, excluding sabotage.
Doomsday Vault Layout
What's in the bunker today?
B) Corridor with a system of hermetically sealed airlocksC) Shelves with containers in the seed storage compartment
D) Box with seed packets
E) Sealed bag with seeds" class="fancybox" rel="lightbox">
A) Login B) Hermetically sealed airlock system
C) Shelves with containers in the seed storage compartment
D) Box with seed packets
E) Sealed bag with seeds
The Doomsday Vault, designed for 4.5 million tons of seeds, is still far from being completely filled. Project participants send here 500 seeds of one name, preference is given to agricultural crops. Although only 150 species of plants come to the table of earthlings, 12 of which represent the most popular grains, each of them includes thousands of varieties. The object will not be an absolute salvation of the green cover of the Earth, but it will ensure the preservation of the achievements of mankind, through its research and constant selection, which has greatly increased the diversity of the plant world.
Modern Art
Norwegian law states that any public building financed by the government and exceeding a certain cost must be of art value. Usually the artwork is located within the building, but the World Seed Vault is a special safe place that cannot be visited ordinary people. KORO, an agency dedicated to promoting art in public spaces, invited Dyvek Sann to highlight the beauty and majesty of Arctic light in the design of the vault. The artist made the art feature prominent by placing it on the roof and front of the entrance to the Doomsday Vault.
Vault roof
Facade of the Doomsday VaultThe facade and roof of the building are decorated with steel reflective triangles of various sizes. They are complemented by prisms and illuminated mirrors. The futuristic composition reflects polar light in the summer months, while in winter a network of 200 fiber optic cables colors the seed vault a muted greenish-turquoise and white colors. Due to the color tints and play of light, which are only enhanced by the snow lying around, the building is interesting to view up close and from afar, in different times day and year. The object symbolizes the diversity of life that is hidden in the vault and reflected to the whole world through a larger prism.
"The interior of the Seed Vault is protected from prying eyes. Even so, its contents reflect a certain significance and complexity that affects us. The very existence of the World Seed Vault reminds us of our own position in the world, about our relationship to the state and the Earth. Seeds ripen in future. They are copies of bio-diversity that need regular cyclical care rather than a strong belief in new linear progress. Mirror surfaces do not reveal any objects that may lie behind them - they only copy what they receive and throw it's the opposite. Standing close enough, you can see yourself in the reflection; stand further away and you will become part of the landscape, or your eyes will simply run wild from the reflected light. Even so, reflections create opposition and repression, which
vary depending on the location of the observer."
Divek Sann
Tourist information
The Doomsday Vault is one of those attractions that are more enjoyable to read about while sitting at your computer than to witness them with your own eyes. A difficult climate with above-zero temperatures only in July-August, an abundance of short-term precipitation, sharp gusts of wind, frequent fogs are a good reason to abandon walks around the island in favor of virtual travel. There is another reason: access to strategic reserves is open only to scientists who have received special permission from their government. Of course, the press was invited to the opening, but since then mainly geneticists and breeders have been interested in the contents of the object. No one is forbidden to look at the entrance to the vault from the outside, but the sight will not be very educational: a small bridge will lead visitors from the compact parking lot to massive doors at the base of a narrow gray rectangle that goes straight into the rock. The prosaic nature of the landscape is brightened up during the Polar Night, when ice crystals sparkle at the top of the entrance.
How to get to the site
Formally, the Doomsday Vault is located in the town of Longyearbyen. This modest village with rows of colorful houses and just 2,000 inhabitants is the official capital of the archipelago. In fact, the facility was built about a kilometer south of the local airport runway, and the nearest housing is another 3 km away. east direction. Domestic tourists can go to Spitsbergen without a visa if they somehow get on a flight carrying shift workers from Russia. Other travelers prefer to come here by plane from the largest cities in Norway - Oslo and Tromsø. In recent decades, summer sea cruises along the coast of the northern part of the country have become popular. Another way to fully enjoy the advantages of the archipelago is to enroll in the Svalbard International University, opened right in Longyearbyen. It trains specialists in biology, geology, geophysics of the Arctic, and engineers working in the Far North. The training program is distinguished by an abundance of hours of field practice in extreme conditions, requiring remarkable health from students.
Precautions when traveling in Svalbard
The lack of people on the island is more than compensated by the abundance of polar bears, who are not afraid to enter the territory of villages and tourist camps. Indigenous people go out for walks with guns; the first classes of university students begin with shooting training. If a bear is spotted in sight, the person needs to leave the danger zone as quickly as possible; sometimes helicopters are sent to help potential victims. In the event of an immediate threat to life, it is allowed to kill predators, but in the future the governor of Svalbard will personally investigate the incident, determining whether the limits of necessary self-defense have been exceeded. Anyone who is not afraid of frosts, animals, or the paucity of architectural impressions from a visit to the Doomsday Vault will receive unforgettable impressions of the harsh northern landscape. Rocks descending to the water, snow caps on the opposite shore of Adventfjord, only in summer giving way to sparse grass, a calm sea and cheerful houses of all colors of the rainbow - this will remain in the memory of travelers who climbed the mountain to the entrance to the storage facility, Spitsbergen.
Endangered species such as humpback whales and rhinoceros often grab the headlines, but plant life is also under threat. Fruits and vegetables that people have grown for thousands of years are dying out. One study found that of the more than 8,000 types of crops grown in the US in 1903, only 600 remained by 1983. What would happen in the event of a global nuclear war, an asteroid strike, or even catastrophic climate change? Will there be enough species to revive civilization? Solution - Noah's Ark for Seeds, Svalbard World Seed Vault in Norway.
Located approximately 1,300 kilometers south of the North Pole, on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, in an underground cave, lies the Global Seed Vault - a large fortress that can support up to 4.5 million species of seed. Often called the "Doomsday" seed vault, Svalbard is the world's insurance policy against botanical disasters. With its help, production food products could be restarted anywhere on the planet after a regional or global catastrophe.
Although the popular press portrays the vault as a way to save the world in the event of a global catastrophe, it is more often used when gene pools lose specimens due to mismanagement, accidents, equipment failures, and natural disasters that occur with some regularity. There are approximately 1,400 seed banks worldwide, but many are in politically unstable countries or countries that are environmentally threatened. In recent years, some national gene pools have also been destroyed by war and civil strife. 
The repository was founded by Carey Fowler in collaboration with the Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and was funded (US$9 million) entirely by the Norwegian government. Seed storage in Svalbard is free, and operating costs are provided by Norway and the Global Crop Diversity Trust. Funding also comes from various foundations and governments around the world. 
The seed vault opened in 2008, and within the first year approximately 400,000 seed samples were in storage. Samples came from Ireland, USA, Canada, Switzerland, Colombia, Mexico and Syria. Since March 2013, the number of excellent samples has risen to 770,000. 
The vault is built 120 meters inside a sandstone mountain on the island of Spitsbergen. The location was considered ideal due to its privacy and permafrost, which would aid conservation. Being located 130 meters above sea level, it is guaranteed to remain dry even if the ice sheets melt. 
The seeds are packaged in special bags with four folds to eliminate moisture. Locally mined coal provides energy for the cold storage facilities that store the seeds at -18°C. Even if the equipment fails, at least several weeks will pass before the temperature rises to -3°C, which is the temperature of the surrounding sandstone base. To maintain security, motion sensors and a webcam monitor the door. The control tower at the local airport has a direct view of the site, which is kept well lit during the dark winter months. 
Norwegian artist Divek Sann was commissioned to do the light installation and design the entrance to the seed vault. The roof and entrance to the vault are replete with reflective stainless steel, mirrors and prisms. The installation acts as a beacon, reflecting polar light in the summer months, while in winter, a network of 200 fiberglass cables gives the structure a muted greenish-turquoise-white light.
The seed vault is also mentioned in the list
