The seed vault is established in the mountains of Svalbard, and stores seeds from collections around the globe. The idea is to preserve the seeds in case of natural disasters, wars and lack of resources. Norwegian Prime Mister Jens Stoltenberg opened the seed vault today.
26/02/2008 :: The Norwergian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg unlocked the Svalbard Global Seed Vault today. Toghether with the African Nobel Peace Price-winning environmentalist Wangari Maathai he placed the first seeds in the vault.
"A global seed vault is necessary to provide a safe haven in the permafrost of Svalbard for the world's biological diversity. It is a Noah's Ark for our biological heritage. With so many forces threatening the diversity of life that sustains our planet, Noway is proud to be providing a facility capable of protecting what are not only seeds, but the fundamental building blocks of human civilization," the Norwegian Prime Minister said at the ceremony.
Norwegian musicians also performed at the opening ceremony, 130 m deep into the frozen mountains. The President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, and a host of dignitaries and agricultural experts from around the globe deposited seeds during the ceremony.
Many of the seed collections are from developing countries.The seed collection includes seed samples of food plants from the entire world. Among the 100 countries are Colombia, Mexico, Canada, the Philippines, Syria, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Kenya.
30.000 seed samples of mostly barley and wheat are coming from the Middle East, also known as the cradle of agriculture. Even though there are political conflicts in Kenya and Pakistan, they have also sent their samples. The biggest contributor is IRRI in the Philippines, who are shipping 70.000 different varieties of rice from 120 countries.
Svalbard Global Seed Vault consists of three enormous caverns outside Longyearbyen, and has the capacity to house 4,5 million seed samples. The seeds will remain naturally frozen for 200 years, even during worst case-scenario global warming.
The vault is funded and established by Norway as a service to the world, and the project costs nearly NOK 50 million.
By the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Beirut