Sval­bard Glo­bal Seed Vault: 15th anni­ver­sa­ry

The famous “Sval­bard Glo­bal Seed Vault” cele­bra­tes its 15th anni­ver­sa­ry the­se days. It was ope­ned in Febru­ary 2008 – that was one of the very first news on this site – and the anni­ver­sa­ry was now cele­bra­ted on Sun­day in Sval­bard­mu­se­um.

Sval­bard Glo­bal Seed Vault: 15th anni­ver­sa­ry cele­bra­ti­ons the­se days.
This is the tun­nel that leads to the actu­al vault in the moun­tain behind Lon­gye­ar­by­en air­port.

The anni­ver­sa­ry has attrac­ted inter­na­tio­nal media atten­ti­on. Secre­ta­ry of agri­cul­tu­re San­dra Borch should have joi­n­ed the cele­bra­ti­ons on Sun­day, but she was not able to board her flight from Trom­sø to Lon­gye­ar­by­en becau­se she had for­got­ten her pass­port.

During the initi­al years of its exis­tence, the Sval­bard Glo­bal Seed Vault (SGSV) had to deal with various tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties that requi­red expen­si­ve tech­ni­cal upgrades. By now, appro­xi­m­ate­ly 1.2 mil­li­on seed samples are stored in the vault. The­re is enough space for up to 4.5 mil­li­on samples. All of the­se are from crop plants around the world, the Seed Vault does not store seeds of natu­ral plants.

One of three cham­bers of the Sval­bard Glo­bal Seed Vault.

The Sval­bard Glo­bal Seed Vault is not acces­si­ble to the public. The ope­ra­tor orga­ni­sa­ti­on has announ­ced a vir­tu­al tour to make the Seed Vault acces­si­ble at least online.

Some­thing that has been avai­la­bel on this web­site alre­a­dy for years 🙂 Click here for a vir­tu­al tour of the famous Sval­bard Glo­bal Seed Vault.

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