Next week will mark the official opening of what has been referred to as both the 'Doomsday Vault' and more optimisically as the 'Noah's Ark' for seeds.
On Tuesday (26 February) European Commission President Jose Barroso and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg are to attend a ribbon-cutting ceremony opening a seed vault – a massive storehouse for food plant seeds that aims to preserve biodiversity in the face of global warming and natural disasters.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault has been built to store 4.5 million different agricultural seed samples from around the world at -18 degrees Celsius.
"The seed vault is the perfect place for keeping seeds safe for centuries," said Cary Fowler, Executive Director of the Rome-based Global Crop Diversity Trust, which has helped establish the vault along with Norway and the Nordic Gene Bank.
"At these temperatures, seeds for important crops such as wheat, barley and peas can last for up to 10,000 years," he said...
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