#Inside doomsday vault upgrade

The Climate in Svalbard 2100 report was commissioned by the Norwegian Environment Agency. 'With rumours of polar bears lurking nearby, we shot in freezing temperatures of around -20☌ (-4☏) in hazardous materials gear, while ensuring our equipment functioned properly to produce the best possible image quality from the air and ground.' 'But this great honour didn't come without challenges as the building is buried in Arctic permafrost. He said: 'The experience filming the Svalbard Global Seed Vault was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and very humbling. Neil Henderson, the owner of The Virtual Tour Experts, travelled to Svalbard to film the vault's interior himself. It has been developed in collaboration with the Crop Trust to celebrate the Seed Vault's 15th anniversary. The tour, which takes you around the stunning Arctic landscape as well as inside the vault, was designed by The Virtual Tour Experts, a company based in Devon, UK. He said: 'The experience filming the Svalbard Global Seed Vault was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and very humbling' Neil Henderson, the owner of The Virtual Tour Experts, travelled to Svalbard to film the vault's interior himself. In Zambia, for example, the Plant Genetic Resources Centre of the Southern Africa Development Community has been providing to farmers a type of grass called sorghum, which is used for flour and can grow rapidly in dry conditions. Seed banks are also increasingly being called upon to help farmers adapt to global warming. The grains, bulbs, rice and other seeds in Svalbard keeps are only to be used in the event that the originals are lost as a result of regional or global crises.įor example, the national seed bank of the Philippines was damaged by flooding and subsequently destroyed in a fire in 2012, while facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq were destroyed in conflict. Regional vaults help to maintain a diversity of different plant varieties and provide seeds when needed to support agricultural efforts. It is primarily intended to serve as a back-up for other seed banks around the world which store valuable plant species. However, the specific species with the most seeds at Svalbard is Pearl Millet, a nutritious grain that grows in arid regions, with 84 million. Rice is by far the most common seed type stored, with 85 million seeds, and 82 million of these being Asian varieties like oryza sativa.

They even store 100,000 seeds for hallucinogenic plants such as cannabis and opium, but no genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as Norwegian law prohibits them.

“We need to preserve this biodiversity, this crop diversity, to provide healthy diets and nutritious foods, and for providing farmers, especially smallholders, with sustainable livelihoods so that they can adapt to new conditions.”Īlready, one-in-nine people go to bed hungry globally, according to the United Nations’ World Food Programme, and scientists have predicted that erratic weather patterns could reduce both the quality and the quantity of food available.The majority of these are species of food crops, with 69 per cent being grains, 9 per cent legumes and the rest being fruits, vegetables, herbs and other plants. “The seed vault is the backup in the global system of conservation to secure food security on Earth,” Stefan Schmitz, executive director of the Crop Trust, the Bonn-based organization which manages the vault, told Reuters. Photo by ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP/Getty Images Seeds of these tubercules were sent to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SISV) in Norway. An employee of the Potato International Centre (CIP) in Lima, handles seeds of potatoes and sweet potatoes being cultivated at the Centre.

#Inside doomsday vault upgrade

In October, Norway completed an $11 million, year-long upgrade of the whole facility. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt.