![]() No seeds have ever been withdrawn, according to Lainoff, but Syria’s civil war has brought such chaos that it has the guardians of the so-called “Doomsday Vault” sounding the doomsday alarm. The vault is meant to be opened only in the event of a catastrophic event, like flooding or drought, that would threaten a crop with extinction, according to Brian Lainoff, a spokesman for the Crop Trust, one of the vault’s international stewards. The Global Seed Vault, something of an agricultural Noah’s Ark, keeps a seed of just about every known crop in the world inside a frozen vault on the Norwegian island of Svalbard. ![]() ![]() So if you appreciate Icepeople for its unique stories about Svalbard and/or critical news during these critical times, as well as its features about the more colorful aspects of life here ( today’s feature about the upcoming Polarjazz festival is for the event that first drew our editor’s attention to Svalbard way back in 2008) please do whatever you can during what are admittedly incredibly harsh times for many.The horror of Syria’s civil war is familiar to most, thanks to the ghastly images of death and destruction – and most recently, of fleeing refugees – that have played out across our screens.īut the conflict’s ugly effects have now reached far beyond the devastated streets of Syria and the crowded camps where its refugees huddle, and into the unlikeliest of places: deep below the frozen tundra of an Arctic island. (190 NOK) to stay online for another month and 2) the editor needs any and all help possible to avoid homelessness in the middle of polar winter (not that it’s legal here any other time of the year). Icepeople is again facing an immediate existential crisis due (of course) to hardships largely inflected by the pandemic. (Shortcut: GoFundMe / website / Vipps at 4151 4638) There have been some moments of true desperation during our 13-year history. URGENT PLEA – Icepeople’s website and editor need help NOW to avoid homelessness It’s crazy enough being someone from “elsewhere” in Svalbard – help ensure this “other” at least has a home for his newspaper and himself! At present there are about 860,000 samples from crops found in every country on Earth.ĭuring their visit, officials also deposited the first seed samples from the Czech Republic. The Svalbard vault can store about 4.5 million seed samples in its three storage rooms chilled to minus 18 degrees Celsius, the largest such facility in the world. This is why we urged them to deposit so early on.”Ībout 80 percent of the seeds from the Syrian bank were deposited in the Svalbard vault between 20, according to the trust’s database for the vault. “But (we) knew in 2008 that Syria was in for an interesting couple of years. “We did not expect a retrieval this early,” said Brian Lainoff, a spokesman for the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which manages the Svalbard vault, in an interview with NPR. ICARDA moved its headquarters to Beirut from Aleppo in 2012 because of the war. Among the species are wheat, barley and grasses suited for dry regions. ![]() The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), a non-profit agricultural institute that manages the gene bank, is requesting nearly 130 boxes out of 325 that have been deposited in the Svalbard vault since it opened in 2008, according to the ministry. They will be sent to other countries in the Middle East since Syria is still affected by war, but for security reasons we will not say where.” “Then they will put new seeds up here again as a backup. “The gene bank wants back some of the seeds already this fall to produce and harvest them, said Norwegian Minster of Agriculture and Food Sylvi Listhaug in an interview with Verdens Gang during the visit. A seed bank in the city of Aleppo is still partially operational despite the civil war that has heavily damaged the city, but can no longer function as a hub for providing seeds to other countries in the region. Its creators hate the term “Doomsday Vault,” but for Syria that day has arrived.Ī historic first “withdrawal” from the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on behalf of Syria occurred during a visit Sunday by Norwegian and European Union leaders.
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