[Peakoil] FW: Work begins on Arctic seed vault

[Keith Thomas]

On 20/06/2006, at 3:19 PM, Adrian Whitehead wrote:

>  
>
> From: Sarah Rees [mailto:sarah at accessenvironmental.com.au]
> Sent: Tuesday, 20 June 2006 3:12 PM
> To: adrian at ecoaction.net.au; Chris Taylor; adam menary
> Subject: Work begins on Arctic seed vault
>
> Work begins on Arctic seed vault
>
> The Arctic seed vault will be built into mountain rock
> Norway is starting construction on a "doomsday vault" in the Arctic 
> which is designed to house all known varieties of the world's crops.
> Dug into a frozen mountainside on the island of Svalbard, it is hoped 
> the project will safeguard crop diversity in the event of a global 
> catastrophe.
>
> More than 100 countries have backed the vault, which will store seeds, 
> packaged in foil, at sub-zero temperatures.
>
> Prime Ministers from five nations helped lay the cornerstone on Monday.
>
> Premiers from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland attended 
> the ceremony near the town of Longyearbyen, in Norway's remote 
> Svalbard Islands, roughly 1,000 km (620 miles) from the North Pole.
>
> <snip>

Many community groups, eg permaculture, have been forming seed banks 
over the past 30 years although not all in such 'cool' locations. Low 
humidity is often also critical eg some of the wheat stored in the 
tombs of Egypt for 3000 years was viable. We also have a lot of germ 
plasm (DNA, embryos) stored by freeze drying but not sure how long the 
liquid nitrogen will last or be re-supplied.

Perhaps if we had preserved our soils and climates then bio-diversity 
could continue to be stored and evolve in replicating natural systems 
rather than in such doomsday repositories. Also if climate change slows 
the thermohalocline how far will Spitzbergen be under ice should we 
need to access the reserves?

Keith

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