Anonymous Cow writes "A giant refrigerated genetic bank built into the island of Svalbard has been brought online. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway is designed to house up to 4.5 million seeds in the case of a catostrophic event. The bank is funded by the Norwegian government, Monsanto Corporation, and the Gates, Rockefeller, and Syngenta Foundations. The Global Crop Diversity Trust has completed construction of the doomsday vault and is getting the facility ready to preserve the genetic heritage of the world's agriculture for future generations. There will be no full-time staff, but the vault's relative inaccessibility will facilitate monitoring human activity. Spitsbergen was considered ideal due to its lack of tectonic activity and its permafrost, which will aid preservation. Locally mined coal will provide power for refrigeration units which will further cool the seeds to the internationally."
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The Seed Vault is being built to provide a safety net to protect against losses that happen (all too frequently) in traditional seed banks around the world due to equipment failure, mismanagement and even localized catastrophies such as war. It would provide some measure of security against even larger catastrophies, but of course one could always imagine a scenario in which the facility would prove inadequate (direct hit by big asteriod!).
Regarding funding...most of the entities cited as funding the faci
check your "facts" (Score:1)