Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Svalbard Global Seed Vault

Episode Date: March 21, 2021

Far above the Arctic Circle on the Norwegian island of Spitzbergen, built into the side of a mountain which is permanently frozen, is humanity’s greatest insurance policy. There lie genetic backup copies for much of the world’s agricultural crops. These seeds are stored for a day which hopefully will never come. Learn more about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Far above the Arctic Circle on the Norwegian island of Svalbard, built into the side of a mountain which is permanently frozen, is humanity's greatest insurance policy. There lies genetic backup copies for much of the world's agricultural crops. These seeds are stored for a day, which will hopefully never come. Learn more about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time. to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night.

And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the Thuline podcast from NPR. This episode is sponsored by Masterclass. If you've ever wanted to learn something new, wouldn't you want to learn it from the very best people in their field? Masterclass is exactly that. Online courses where you can learn from the very top people in the world. Learn how to play chess from Gary Kasparov or how to play poker from

Phil Ivy, gymnastics from Simone Biles, design and architecture from Frank Gary, acting from Helen Mirren, and filmmaking from Martin Scorsese. You can learn from the world's best for only $15 per month. Just go to everything-everywhere.com slash masterclass or click on the link in the show notes. Civilization arose with the rise of agriculture. Agriculture required the domestic of plants. As humanity advanced, we grew different varietals of plants to meet our needs. The varietals are created by crossbreeding different strains of plants. They allow for more hearty and fruitful plants, which produce more food per acre, as well as being more resistant to drought and disease. However, many of the original varietals which were used to create the modern

versions have disappeared. You might think that this doesn't matter. If we use the old varietals to make the new ones, then didn't they serve their job? Well, not exactly. genetics in different varietals may be needed at a later time. They could have resistances to different pests or different attributes which might be needed, perhaps in different combinations, sometime in the future. To rectify this problem all around the world, countries have established seed banks. There are currently over 1,300 seed banks on Earth. They're run by governments, universities, and corporations.

Most of them are dedicated to the preservation of local varietals, and they work with local farmers and researchers. Think of them more as seed libraries than as seed banks. Some seed banks have more extensive collections. The Millennium Seed Bank located in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Q, England, is the largest such seed bank in the world. It currently holds over 2.4 billion seeds from over 40,000 wild species, representing over 10% of all the wild plant species on Earth.

The seeds are in a nuclear blast-proof vault below the surface and are kept refrigerated at minus 20 Celsius or minus 4 Fahrenheit. This solution and other seed banks around the world are fine, but what happens if something happens to them? And this isn't an idle concern. A seed bank in the Philippines burned down and then was destroyed by a flood. The seed bank in Afghanistan was destroyed by the Taliban, and all of the seeds ended up being scattered on the ground.

There are dozens of calamities and disasters which can befall a site. In addition to natural disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis, there are civil emergencies such as wars, riots, famines, and electrical blackouts which could occur. Seeds are also susceptible to insects, mice, and good old-fashioned rotting. The biggest threat is also just plain old budget cuts. What if a country abandons its seed bank? Then what happens? During World War II, the world's largest seed bank was located in Leningrad at the Institute of Plant Industry.

During the siege of Leningrad, scientists barricaded themselves in the Institute to protect the seeds. They had to protect the seeds not just from the Germans, but from the starving citizens of Leningrad, as well as from rats, and even from themselves. They knew the ability of the country to bounce back after the war was dependent on the preservation of those seeds. Several men died of starvation at the Institute while being surrounded by bags of rice and wheat. The lessons from Leningrad, Afghanistan, and the Philippines were that another layer of protection was needed. If you think of the genes in the seeds as data, then a seed bank is like backing up your data on an external hard drive in your house, and that's fine. But what happens if your house burns down?

You need off-site storage for your data. It was in this vein that agriculturist Kerry Fowler hatched the idea of the creation of a global seed vault. This global vault would be the off-site backup for the world's genetic seed data. The island of Svalbard, far north of the Arctic Circle, proved to be the perfect place for a seed vault. For starters, it's extremely remote. There are a few people around who, in the event of a disaster, could potentially raid the vault. Norway is also a stable country with little immediate threat of civil turmoil. Because of its latitude, there are no pests on the island.

There are no insects or rodents which could possibly eat the seeds. The climate is also very cold and relatively dry. The location of the vault on the island is located on a sandstone mountain, 130 meters above sea level. This ensures that it will not be subject to future sea level changes or tsunamis. The location is also seismically stable, meaning that the threat of earthquakes is very low. The vaults are 120 meters inside the mountain. They're designed to be waterproof, and the design is such that water either freezes or drains before it would possibly reach the main storage area.

The seeds are all stored in aluminum, heat-sealed bags that are waterproof. It's believed that the seeds contained in the vault will be able to survive for centuries to millennia depending on the species of the seed. Ground was broken on the vault in 2006, and it was completed in 2008. The entire project was funded by the Norwegian government. The vault is available at no cost to any country which assign the International Treaty on plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. All of the seeds stored in the facility are the property of whoever made the deposit. To date, there are over 1 million seed samples from 87 seed

banks in 66 countries. In 2015, the first ever withdrawal from the vault took place. Because of the Syrian War, the International Center for Agricultural Research in dry areas, which was located in Aleppo, Syria, had to move its operations to Brayrout. However, they were not able to to bring most of their seeds with them. The seeds placed in the vault allowed them to restock their seed bank, now located in Beirut. The seeds were planted,

and the seeds from the new plant were harvested and sent back to the vault in Norway. There's still a lot of room in the vault, and there are still many species that aren't represented. However, since the vault opened in 2008, the number of seeds in the vault has slowly increased. So we can all take some solace in the fact that in the event of war, pestilence, blight,

or any other natural disaster, our ability to bring back the crops which sustain our world will not be lost. The associate producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Thor Thompson. If you'd like to support the show, please donate over at patreon.com. There is content only available to supporters, merchandise, and even opportunities for a show producer credit. If you know someone you think would enjoy the show, please share it with them. Also remember, if you leave a five-stop review, I'll read your review on the show. Thank you.