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[aroraborealis]

I want to live in a country that would do this:

A 'Forever' Seed Bank Takes Root in the Arctic
Daniel Charles*

LONGYEARBYEN, NORWAY--The prime ministers of five Nordic countries gathered here on the arctic archipelago of Svalbard last week to mark the beginning of a unique bunker: an underground vault that will hold up to 3 million seeds. Launched with $3 million from Norway, the project seeks to preserve the DNA of agricultural crops--the most complete such collection in the world by far. "It will contribute to ensuring our food security [and] protect our cultural heritage," says Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

Comments

[catya.livejournal.com]

I heard something on NPR about this recently, about one that existed now that the Norway folks were modeling on? I can't remember if it was northern canada or greenland, though, and wikipedia doesn't say.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

There are several seed banks in the world, but some have been damaged due to war and others are deteriorating due to imperfect conditions. Actually, this is the sort of thing that every country should do, because having the genetic variety of a seed bank is just plain smart, and having backups is also smart.

This one's extra cool (pun intended) because it's so far north, and it's in the permafrost layer, so the location makes it less likely to deteriorate, even if the climate controls went out of whack.

[catya.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the other one I heard about was similarly far north, i just can't remember where