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“Without the Plant Treaty, we would not have the atmosphere of trust and rules for international collaboration to safeguard this valuable natural resource.”

“The story about safeguarding the ICARDA collection at Svalbard illustrates the importance of multilateral collaboration,” says Ola Westengen of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, who emphasises that all countries and regions of the world are interdependent when it comes to genetic resources.

Fresh safety duplicates have also been returned to Svalbard. Researchers say 1 the retrieved seed samples have been replicated in large numbers to produce fresh seed for the reconstruction of active and base collections as well as for distribution. Since 2015, ICARDA has been rebuilding its collection at new facilities in Terbol, Lebanon and in Rabat, Morocco, based on its backup of safety duplicates held at the Svalbard vault. Greenhouses at Terbol Station, Lebanon Michael Major/Crop Trust “But as it turns out, it was very good that we began depositing the seeds back then.” We didn’t set out, per se, to protect the seed bank in case of political instability back in 2008,” says Zakaria Kehel, head of genetic resources, pre-breeding and gene bank operations at ICARDA, Morocco. “Safety duplication is one of the pillars of gene bank management. The extraordinary efforts of ICARDA staff, who managed to catalogue the collection, prepare, and send duplicates out of Syria in the midst of conflict, have been hailed internationally and earned them the Gregor Mendel Innovation Prize in 2015. ICARDA was among the first depositors when the vault opened in 2008, and managed to duplicate more than 80 percent of its seed collection by the time the last staff were forced to leave Tel Hadia, Syria in 2014 because of the war. The vault is located on a Norwegian island inside the Arctic Circle and buried more than 100 metres inside the Platåberget mountain, surrounded by permafrost and thick rock. The collection was saved by an early decision to send seeds for safety duplication at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, often referred to as the doomsday vault for the world’s seeds. The collection was previously held entirely in Syria, but was in danger of being lost when civil war broke out in March 2011.

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The seed samples, or ‘accessions’, are available free of charge to plant breeders and researchers around the world under the Plant Treaty framework, giving them access to the genetic traits that could help other crops around the world withstand drought, heat and pests. It contains thousands of wild relatives of staple food crops, such as wheat, barley, lentils and fava beans. The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas’ ( ICARDA) seed bank represents the largest collection of crop diversity from the Fertile Crescent, the region where agriculture first evolved. Seed banks are rich repositories of biodiversity that are vital for safeguarding future food security, particularly in the face of climate change. Now, staff can rebuild the seed bank in Morocco and Lebanon, a process that would not have been possible if not for international collaborations and agreements. Global Crop Diversity TrustĪn invaluable seed collection from the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East was saved from being destroyed in Syria thanks to a rich collection of safety duplicates stored in a doomsday vault on an island in the Arctic Circle.

ICARDA was among the first depositors when the Svalbard Global Seed Vault opened in 2008, managing to duplicate more than 80 percent of its seed collection in Syria by the time the last staff were forced to leave in 2014. “This demonstrates that the seed vault is a worldwide insurance for food supply for future generations,” Agriculture Minister Jon Georg Dale said in a statement.International collaborations rescue a seed heritage from the ravages of war. The seeds were grown and re-deposited at the Svalbard vault last year. In 2015, researchers made a first withdrawal from the vault after Syria’s civil war damaged a seed bank near the Syrian city of Aleppo. A decade ago, Norway said that it had cost $9 million to build the facility. The revamp would cover “construction of a new, concrete-built access tunnel, as well as a service building to house emergency power and refrigerating units and other electrical equipment that emits heat through the tunnel,” the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement.Īn unexpected thaw of permafrost meant some water flowed into the entrance of the tunnel to the vault in late 2016. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is meant as a natural deep freeze to back up the world’s gene banks in case of disasters ranging from nuclear war to global warming.

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OSLO – Norway plans to spend 100 million Norwegian crowns ($13 million) to upgrade a doomsday seed vault on an Arctic island built 10 years ago to protect the world’s food supplies, the government said on Friday.