The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a secure seed bank on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, near Longyearbyen, approximately 810 miles from the North Pole. It is the brainchild of American conservationist Cary Fowler, in association with the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) to preserve a wide variety of plant seeds that are duplicate samples, or “spare” copies, of seeds held in gene banks worldwide. The seed vault is an attempt to ensure against the loss of seeds in other gene banks during the large-scale regional or global crisis and the Norwegian government entirely funded the vault’s approximately 45million KR (£3.7million) construction.
Australia’s 60 Minute sent Charles Wooley to the remote mountains of the Arctic Circle to produce a documentary earlier this month.
He told viewers: “In the frozen Arctic wilderness of the Norwegian island of Svalbard ... Read even more
