LONGYEARBYEN (dpa-AFX) – The global seed vault on Svalbard has turned 15 years old. To mark the anniversary, dozens of boxes of new seed samples that had arrived in the archipelago in the far north of Norway over the past few days were officially registered at Longyearbyen Airport on Sunday. They are to be stored on Tuesday in the facility, which is unique in the world. The operators are to receive support from 15-year-olds from the village, who are therefore about the same age as the safe.
The local people of Longyearbyen celebrated the anniversary together with official representatives of Svalbard, gene banks and organizations involved with a small ceremony on Sunday in the Svalbard Museum near the center of the small polar town, which is often referred to as the northernmost place on earth. One is proud to be home to this special facility, said Mayor Arild Olsen. The people of Longyearbyen and their local leaders have helped make the seed vault operation a success, said Norway’s Agriculture Secretary Wenche Westberg.
A total of 68 boxes with almost 20,000 new seed samples are to be brought into the vault on Tuesday. These include around 2750 samples of the LeibnizInstitute for Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) in Gatersleben in Saxony-Anhalt – the largest gene bank in Germany – and a sample of wild strawberries that the Julius Kühn Institute from Quedlinburg (Saxony-Anhalt) sent to Spitsbergen. After the deposit, more than 1.2 million seed duplicates from almost 100 gene banks will be deposited in the seed vault, operations coordinator Åsmund Asdal told the German Press Agency in Longyearbyen.
The seed vault was opened on February 26, 2008. It is often referred to as “Noah’s Ark of Plant Diversity”. Its central task is to ensure the diversity of plants on earth and, last but not least, to ensure that humanity is fed. It also gives genebanks the opportunity to access backup copies of their collections in the event of a disaster./trs/DP/he