BILL GATES DOOMSDAY VAULT FREE

Both the Nordic and African collections have been transferred to the new Svalbard Global Seed Vault facility. In addition, seed samples from southern Africa (SADC) have been safely duplicated with the Nordic collection for some years. The NGB has deposited more than 10,000 seed samples of more than 2,000 cultivars of 300 different species over the years. The Nordic Gene Bank (NGB) has stored a backup of Nordic plant germplasm as frozen seeds in an abandoned coal mine at Svalbard since 1984. Operational costs will be paid by Norway and the Global Crop Diversity Trust.The primary funding of the Trust came from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, United Kingdom, Norway, Australia, Switzerland, and Sweden, though funding has been received from a wide variety of sources including four developing countries: Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, and India.

BILL GATES DOOMSDAY VAULT FREE

Storage of seeds in the seed vault is free of charge. The seed vault is managed under terms spelled out in a tripartite agreement between the Norwegian government, the Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT) and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (also known as NordGen and previously named the Nordic Gene Bank, a cooperative effort of the Nordic countries under the Nordic Council of Ministers).Ĭonstruction of the seed vault, which cost approximately 45 million Norwegian Kroner (9 million USD), was funded entirely by the Government of Norway. The seed vault will provide insurance against the loss of seeds in genebanks, as well as a refuge for seeds in the case of large scale regional or global crises. The seeds are duplicate samples, or 'spare' copies, of seeds held in genebanks worldwide. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault ( Norwegian: Svalbard globale frøhvelv) is a secure seedbank located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near the town of Longyearbyen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago, about 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) from the North Pole.The facility preserves a wide variety of plant seeds in an underground cavern. 'We hope we will never need the seeds from the Svalbard vault, but the way the world is going, we probably will at some stage in the next 50 to 100 years,' Gregson said. Sponsored Links Seed banks in other parts of the world have been destroyed by natural disasters and human intervention.īanks in Afghanistan and Iraq were lost during war, and typhoons have wiped out rice banks in the Philippines.Īustralia's seed banks have been threatened recently by lack of funding and massive floods that swept across the country. It stocks more than 250 million seeds in total. The vault, pretty much a giant natural freezer, opened in 2008 after the Norwegian government funded its $9 million construction as a ' service to the world.' As far as we can tell, it is the safest place on earth.' 'It's in a permanent permafrost, so the temperature will never rise above about minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit) and it is patrolled by polar bears. 'It's built deliberately 60 meters above current sea level, which is above any predicted sea level rise, built into solid rock. 'It's as safe as any place on earth, actually,' Gregson said. Permafrost and thick rock ensure that, even in the case of a power outage, the seed samples will remain frozen.' Tony Gregson, a farmer and scientist with Plant Health Australia, an agriculture industry body.Īccording to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault website, the facility's main purpose is 'to store duplicates ('back ups') of all seed samples from the world's crop collections. 'It's a very robust structure, concrete, made into the side of a mountain at Svalbard in the Spitsbergen Highlands in the Arctic,' said Dr.

John McConnico, AP Australian farmers and scientists next week will deposit 301 samples of peas and 42 rare chickpeas in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, shown here in 2008. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a converted mine, is located about 800 miles from the North Pole in Arctic Norway.Īn Australian delegation of farmers and scientists next week will deposit 301 samples of peas and 42 rare chickpeas in the vault, intending to protect the plant species from extinction by climatic or man-made events.

Farmers from Australia are the latest donors to a polar bear-patrolled Arctic doomsday vault that stores seeds as insurance against an international food emergency.

Bill gates doomsday vault