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Svalbard Seed Vault opens to protect world's plant gene pool

Posted Feb 26, 2008 at 11:02AM by Isaac C. Listed in: Plants and Agriculture, Environmental Campaigns Tags: Norway
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Svalbard Seed Vault opens this week - Image 1 


Set in an island in Norway, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a fortress of concrete, guarding the world's... plants? Well there are more than 350,000 species out there, and with today's weather going crazy, it's not hard to imagine a whole lot of them going extinct.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault acts as the world's insurance policy in case we lose any branches in the family tree of... well, trees. And other vegetation of course; flora, fauna, and lawn grass in case all of the world's golf courses experience a freak case of brushfire.

From outside, all you can see of the vault is a block of concrete, but its walls extend 410 feet into the island. Inside, the Seed Vault has over 250,000 varieties of plants. That's over 10 million seeds from "virtually ever country in the world."

The Seed Vault officially opened today and hopefully will serve to protect the gene pool of the world's plants for years to come. Now if only there was something similar for humans... nah.

[Via The Daily Green] Permalink  |   Email this  |   Linking Blogs   |   Digg It!

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