The Norwegian Seed Castle on Svalbard

Situated approximately 900 kilometers north of Norway’s coastline and roughly 1,300 kilometers south of the North Pole, there is a collection of islands known as Svalbard. The archipelago is made up of nine primary islands: Spitsbergen, North East Land, Edge Island, Barents Island, Prins Karls Foreland, Kvit Island, Kong Karls Land, Bjørn Island, and Hopen. These islands cover over 24,000 square miles in size and are home to remote wilderness, hostile mountain ranges, and polar bears seeking refuge from the ice of the Arctic Ocean. As a territory of Norway, Svalbard has become a valuable location for scientific research, extraction of natural resources, and doomsday preparation.

In 2008, the Svalbard Seed Vault was opened on Svalbard’s largest island: Spitsbergen. The purpose of the seed vault is to collect seeds from all over the world and safeguard them in a remote location should catastrophe threaten food security. Carved into a mountain, the vault’s interior is protected by a natural insulation agent of thick permafrost that helps regulate consistent temperatures within. With an estimated potential capacity of over four million, the vault currently contains duplicates from 1,301,397 seed samples. These seed samples have been brought to Svalbard from nearly every country and currently sit in special airtight containers on shelves within the natural mountain refrigerator.

Svalbard is the ideal location for a “Doomsday Vault” for a variety of reasons. Svalbard has the northernmost airport with regularly scheduled flights which allows for convenient access to one of the world's most remote locations. The consistently cool temperatures of Svalbard offer stability, and because the vault’s location is within an Arctic mountain, humidity levels offer an incredibly reliable climate also. The vault’s architects even took great care to ensure the safety of the seeds by elevating the vault’s door on the side of the mountain so as to be far out of reach of any potential flooding from the Arctic Ocean.

On February 27th of this year, the Svalbard Seed Vault welcomed the largest number of new gene banks since the vault opened in 2008. The deposit included well over 12,000 new seed samples from twenty-two different gene banks. Eight of the gene banks were depositing seeds for the very first time from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, and Zambia. These contributions were made up of some of the most popular crops: beans, barley, maize, and rice. Together, these seeds joined over a million others already nestled snugly in temperatures of -18°C.

There is an irony in safeguarding the world's seeds in the world's most inhospitable climate. Although vegetation does exist in the form of grasses, reeds, ferns, and mosses on Svalbard, it would be nearly impossible to grow the vault's seeds naturally on the islands. Nevertheless, the extreme environment on Svalbard has become a safe haven for the preservation of vegetative origins for human and animal sustenance. Until needed, the Svalbard Seed Vault will continue protecting the seeds that could one day allow humanity a second chance.