The Svalbard Global Seed Vault by Gunnvor Berge

On the islands of Svalbard, close to the north pole, the international community decided to build a global seed vault to safeguard the world’s biological diversity in food and agricultural plants

The airport at Svalbard. The Global Seed Vault is situated in the mountain right above the airport

The vault, with the long tube leading into the permafrost where three chambers of the vault are placed

The entrance of the vault on the day of the opening, 26 February 2008

A local choir sings as Mari Boine arrives to perform during the opening ceremony

A polar bear made in ice by the artist Olav Storø guards the entrance of the vault. Its heart is made of local seeds that hopefully will sprout as the bear melts during the short summer

Black boxes containing seeds from the gene banks of the world’s international agricultural research centres CGIAR, arriving for the opening

The middle vault, the first one to be filled with seeds. The three chambers together may contain 4, 5 million seeds, more than the total number of varieties on earth. The generators in front cool the chamber down to minus 18

Boxes containing genetic material in custody of the CGIAR-centres: The International Potato Center CIP, The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture IITA, Africa Rice Center WARDA. In the previous picture: The International Rice Research institute IRRI, International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas ICARDA

United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s director-general Dr. Jacques Diouf and Nobel peace laureate Wangari Maathai found the temperature in the Vault quite reassuring for long term storage

The Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg and the president of the EU commission José Manuel Durão Barroso on the top of the Seed Vault during the official opening

Cary Fowler, the head of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, on leave from NORAGRIC at the University of Life Sciences. He is one of the brains behind the Vault and the idea of a safety deposit for the world’s heritage in seeds

An international council has been established to safeguard transparency in operations and serve as a link between the owners and managers of the vault, and the users and wider public. The Head of the Dept of International Environmental and Development Studies (Noragric), Prof. Ruth Haug, is a member of this board. (Here together with Wangari Maathai at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences)