Seeds from some of North America's hottest food crops have arrived on the Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard to be stored in a "doomsday vault".
The consignment of chilli seeds was delivered to the frozen outpost by a delegation of seven US senators.
Built deep inside a mountain, the vault is designed to protect the world's main food plants from future disasters.
Since opening in 2008, it has stored seeds from more than half a million of the planet's crops.
"The chillies really are an interesting story," said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which funds the operation and management of the seed vault.
"The seed vault in Svalbard will be the safety deposit box that ensures that we can keep that food supply intact”
Benjamin Cardin, Democrat Senator for Maryland
"They are traditional varieties; they have colourful names and histories," he told BBC News."A number of the varieties were provided by a fantastic group of nine US government organisations called Native Seed Search who work with Native American communities."These chilli plant varieties have been safeguarded for a long time and long may it continue," Dr Fowler added"But that - of course - depends on an unbroken chain going into the future and you can never really count on such a thing."
via BBC News - 'Red hot' chillies arrive at frozen seed vault.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
'Red hot' chillies arrive at frozen seed vault
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4 comments:
That vault was once featured in that History Channel Show "Life After People." Apparently if we disappeared it would only last a couple thousand years before the seeds would ultimately be exposed to the elements and die, I think.
Cole, a "Doomsday Vault" is not for anyone other than humans to open. If we "disappear," a seed bank would be obviously pointless. Portable generators, for instance, would be absolutely useless, if human beings were simply removed from the planet. That, however, is not a scenario for which anyone could make plans. A "Doomsday Vault" is meant to be assistance for human survivors of a mass extinction event, the kind of disaster that has changed the order of dominance of the life on the planet many times. It is an evolutionary imperative for humans to plan for such an event if we want our species to continue. Dinosaurs couldn't plan, trilobites couldn't plan, but human beings //can//. That is our only chance. In the end, it might be futile, but a few thousand years is really a pretty decent amount of time for a thinking species such as human beings to find a seed bank.
I understand that. I was only making a comment.
But now that we are discussing this, I'm thinking about the practicality of the vault's location. Sure, it's in the Arctic, this is good, because seeds remain cool by themselves even if the artificial refrigeration fails. But I find it difficult to think about how on Earth whatever survivors left after some global cataclysmic event would be able to then afterwards navigate their way through harsh Arctic waters to a little-known Norwegian archipelago. Exactly, pretty unlikely.
That's because that isn't really what the vault was meant for either. The vault's purpose is described as "a safety net against accidental loss of diversity in traditional genebanks." It would be a means of recovery encase of loss caused by some mistake or accident. The media just emphasizes the "doomsday" thing. Really, the vault is a good idea, but not really for any sort of "doomsday."
Well, to be honest, how "arctic" the Arctic waters would be after such an event is a "who knows?" sort of thing. However, I think it should be noted that the people who would find such a thing would also be the people most likely to be equipped for such an expedition, whom also would be the ones most likely to survive such a catastrophe... and I'm not talking about the survivalists or the militia, but instead the government/military entities.
But you're right, Cole; I misunderstood the meaning of your original comment. Sorry.
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