All serious preppers and even people who aren’t preppers at all have heard of the Global Seed Vault. This is an underground vault located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, which is the westernmost part of the Norwegian archipelago. It borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea. It truly is a remote place, although it is actually a fairly large island and is permanently populated.
This site was chosen for the Global Seed Vault as a place to store the world’s repository of food-bearing plant seeds. It was believed that the permafrost that exists on the island would provide “fail-safe” protection for the stories of seeds. Currently the vault holds more than 880,000 samples of seeds ranging from basic global food staples such as rice to unique varieties that are used only in certain areas. The idea was that these seeds would be safeguarded for use in the future in the event of a “doomsday scenario” such as an asteroid strike or a nuclear war. No word on how the average human in, say, the hills of Appalachia were supposed to acccess the seeds in this vault. But I guess it was supposed to make everyone feel better that they were sitting there. I kid.
But seriously. News reports now reveal that the seed vault has been breached by water from the surrounding melting glaciers. The Global Seed Vault is basically a concrete bunker in the side of a mountain. After a year of higher than normal temperatures, meltwater entered the entrance to the seed tunnel and then froze, so it was “like a glacier” when workers tried to walk into it. The reports went on to say that the water stayed at the entrance of the cavern and that the seeds were not in danger. Still, it is alarming. Alarming also is the thought that the designers of this seed vault, who say they planned it to keep the seeds safe for future generations, would not have arranged it so that melting water was not a problem. Maybe they need to rethink the design of this vault to prevent this from happening again. I personally believe that climate change is a real thing. And I support the work of the seed bank.
But you know what is the most important thing? That you, yes YOU, start saving heirloom seeds from your garden plants. Or at least stocking up on some seed packets of non-hybrid plants. We’ve written in the past about why only certain type of seeds work for seed storage. Learn more about that here:
- Why Your Survival Seeds Should Be Heirlooms
- Another Reason Why Seeds Should Be Part of Your Survival Kit
Image of the seed vault from telegraph.co.uk credit AFP
