The first seed samples were laid in the "Doomsday Vault"
If a big disaster ever happens to humanity – a global war or a natural disaster, and the survivors will have to rebuild the world's agriculture and the vegetation of the planet in general from scratch, they will need to remember only one word: Svalbard (or Svalbard).
It was there, far from the "big civilization", under a layer of permafrost, deep in the bowels of the mountain that rises near the town of Longyearbyen (Longyearbyen, the administrative center of the Svalbard archipelago), the construction of the "Doomsday Vault" – Arctic Doomsday Seed Vault, or Global Seed Vault, created under the auspices of the international organization Global Crop Diversity, is almost completed Trust (its headquarters are located in Rome).
The Norwegian Government has allocated $9 million for the construction and management of the storage facility.
Tons of seeds of various plants from all over the planet, hundreds of thousands or even millions of varieties will be delivered to this "biological Fort Knox".
Recently, the first 330 kilograms (7 thousand samples) of seeds from 36 African countries from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), based in Nigeria, were shipped to Norway. At the same time, national seed banks, including Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines and Syria, began sending their collections.
Although there are still storages on the planet in which seeds of important crops are stored "for a rainy day" (including at the All–Russian Institute of Plant Growing in St. Petersburg), the construction on Svalbard is the most protected and thoughtful of them. It should not suffer, even if global warming melts all the ice at both poles of the Earth. At the same time, the conditions in the storage are such that the seeds can be stored there in a usable form for up to a thousand years.
The official opening of the Arctic Doomsday Seed Vault is scheduled for February 26, 2008.
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru according to the materials of the Membrane
04.02.2008