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. 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. There are plans to open it twice more for deposits this year: once from June 6 to June 10 and again from October 24 to October 27.International collaborations rescue a seed heritage from the ravages of war. Fortunately, no seed samples were damaged in either event, and the facility has many safeguards in place to protect its precious contents from catastrophe.Īfter adding more seeds to its catalog, the seed vault will seal its doors again on February 18. Melting permafrost flooded the vault in 2017, and in 2020, the Svalbard archipelago where it's located hit a record high of 71☏. The 11,000-square-foot facility is built into the side of an Arctic mountain, the hope being that its remote location in the frozen tundra will spare it from wars and rising temperatures threatening plants elsewhere on the planet.īut as we've seen in recent years, the global seed bank isn't entirely impervious. The Svalbard Global Seed Bank began operating in 2008 as a physical backup drive for the world's crops. Its collections at home have become robust enough for ICARDA to deposit around 8000 samples in the global seed vault this week. The organization has since relocated from Aleppo to Beirut and rebuilt its seed stores. In 2015, ICARDA become the first group to withdraw material from the bank to replenish seeds destroyed in the Syrian War. ![]() The Lebanese contribution comes from the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas, or ICARDA. On Monday, February 14, Germany, Sudan, Uganda, New Zealand, and Lebanon sent samples of important crops to the bank on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. As Reuters reports, the Arctic fortress has been unlocked for the first time in 2022-this time to make deposits instead of withdrawals. The so-called "doomsday vault" contains 1.1 million seed samples from roughly 6000 plant species that serve as insurance against natural and human-made disasters. In an ideal world, the Svalbard Global Seed Bank in Norway rarely has to open its doors.
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