Photo: Mari Tefre

Yesterday I posted about the process of permanently eradicating a specific disease from the face of the earth. Today is quite the opposite, how are humans able to be ensure the global survival of plant life through major catastrophes? What if a huge fire or flood ravaged all land containing asparagus – we need to make sure that even if this happens the species will not be gone forever!

Buried 400 feet into the side of a mountain, only 810 miles from the North Pole, is a bunker that stores seeds from all over the world. There are over a half million seeds being stored there at zero degrees Fahrenheit – at this temperature most seeds can survive for hundreds of years. Even if the A/C broke, the surrounding rock is only 27 degrees. If the sea level rose several hundred feet it still wouldn’t reach the bunker. Earthquakes and volcano eruptions aren’t a concern due to the vault’s position in the middle of a tectonic plate.

Ok ok, while these doomsday scenarios are certainly interesting, they are not the primary reason for the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The real reason? To protect against the loss of plant diversity. Think of dogs – even though all domestic dogs are the same species, it is obvious there is absurd diversity amongst them. If let to their own devices we would end up with all dogs being mutts.

Plants are the same way. There are potentially seeds for a specific plant that grow taller, are more resistant to cold, or taste differently just to name a few. Seed banks all over the world store backups here in case the seed lineage is accidentally misplaced or destroyed. As you can imagine preserving this biodiversity is much more important than creating a dog that can fit into a purse – one of these plants may hold the secret to curing cancer or other horrible diseases. It all comes full circle.