‘Noah’s Ark’ for seeds is opened
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Norway opened a frozen “doomsday” vault deep within an Arctic mountain where millions of seeds will be stored to safeguard against wars or natural disasters wiping out food crops around the globe.
At the opening ceremony in the remote archipelago of Svalbard, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg called the vault “the Noah’s Ark for securing biological diversity for future generations.”
Svalbard Global Seed Vault, just 620 miles from the North Pole, is designed to store as many as 4.5 million seeds from all over the world. It is built to withstand global warming, earthquakes and even nuclear strikes.
Norway owns the vault, but the countries depositing seeds own them and can use them as needed for free.
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