![]() ![]() ![]() "In order to be 'better safe than sorry,'" their statement reads. In subsequent statements, Crop Trust further clarified the safety of the seeds by assuring seed depositors that they're taking extra measures to secure the vault and keeping an eye on the permafrost. (See update and correction below.)Īnd on May 22, Popular Science updated its report by noting a clarification from the Norwegian organization called Crop Trust that cares for the physical installation and technical operation of the Seed Vault: The reported melting and flooding had actually occurred not recently, but during an unusually warm and rainy October of 2016.Įven more important was this, from Crop Trust's statement: "The seeds and vault were never at risk." The front of the facility was designed to divert water runoff, and the seed storage is separated from the tunnel entrance by a long sloping tunnel with an uphill section before the vault doors. Water seeps into the entryway every year, according to Cary Fowler who spearheaded the vault's creation. Popular Science then published a piece explaining that the reported worse-than-ever flooding was actually somewhat routine. Water in the entryway caught facility managers by surprise and endangered the seeds.īut these reports weren't quite right. ![]() Melting permafrost had flooded the facility because of record-warm winter temperatures. Their claims boiled down to the following: On Friday, May 19, the Guardian and Wired ran stories claiming that melting permafrost had put the Global Seed Vault at risk. To ensure natural refrigeration and allow independence from electricity and human upkeep, the vault is built deep in a mountain on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, inside the Arctic Circle. It serves as a global backup for individual countries' seed banks. The Seed Vault is an underground facility, opened in 2008, that houses more than 930,000 samples of seeds from around the world. Reports spread over the weekend that the Svalbard Global Seed Vault had " flooded," succumbing to the same force it was designed to protect the world's food supply from: global warming. ![]()
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