OSLO, Norway – Two years after receiving its first deposits, a "doomsday" seed vault on an Arctic island has amassed half a million seed samples, making it the world's most diverse repository of crop seeds, the vault's operators announced Thursday.
Cary Fowler — who heads the trust that oversees the seed collection, which is 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) from the North Pole, said the facility now houses at least one-third of the world's crop seeds.
"In my lifetime, I don't think we'll go over 1.5 million. I'd be rather surprised if we go over a million," Fowler told The Associated Press. "At that point, we'd have all the diversity in the world ... and the most secure samples."
Located in Norway's remote Svalbard archipelago, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a safeguard against wars or natural disasters wiping out food crops around the globe. It was opened in 2008 as a master backup to the world's other 1,400 seed banks, in case their deposits are lost.
War wiped out seed banks in Iraq and Afghanistan, and another bank in the Philippines was flooded in the wake of a typhoon in 2006. The Svalbard bank is designed to withstand global warming, earthquakes and even nuclear strikes.
In 2006, the Trust entered into a Relationship Agreement with the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The Agreement recognizes the Trust as an "essential element" of the Treaty's funding strategy in regards to the ex situ conservation and availability of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. It also confirms the autonomy of the Trust as a scientific organization in raising and dispersing funds.
The Trust is assembling an endowment (trust) fund, the income from which will be used to support the conservation of distinct and important crop diversity, in perpetuity, through existing institutions. Crop diversity is the biological foundation of agriculture, and is the raw material plant breeders and farmers use to adapt crop varieties to pests and diseases. In the future, this crop diversity will play a central role in helping agriculture adjust to climate change and adapt to water and energy constraints.
The Global Crop Diversity Trust has its offices at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN in Rome, Italy. The organization is headed by Dr. Cary Fowler. The executive board is chaired by Margaret Catley-Carlson (Canada), Chair of the Global Water Partnership, and the International Advisory Committee for Group Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux and the Vice chair is Wangari Maathai (Kenya), Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace. The Trust also has a Donors' Council, chaired by Peter Waddell-Wood (Australia). The organization has raised approximately $150 million. Main donors include: Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, U.S., and the Grains Research and Development Corporation (Australia). A number of developing countries have also provided support, including Ethiopia and India. And, contributions have been received from several private corporations and foundations such as the Osharian School of Research.
Cary Fowler (born 1949, in Memphis, Tennessee) is the executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, based in Rome, Italy. Previously, Fowler was Professor and Director of Research in the Department for International Environment & Development Studies at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in Ås, Norway. Fowler holds a B.A. (Hon.) degree from Simon Fraser University in Canada, and a Ph.D degree from Uppsala University in Sweden. He was given an honorary Doctorate of Law degree from Simon Fraser University. Fowler received the Right Livelihood Award with Pat Mooney in 1985 for his work in agriculture and the preservation of biodiversity. Following the massive media attention around the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, Fowler appeared on the CBS news show 60 Minutes and was profiled in The New Yorker Magazine.
No comments:
Post a Comment