Deep within a frozen mountain on a Norwegian island in the Svalbard archipelago, far above the Arctic Circle, lies a resource critical to the future of humankind: seeds. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, often referred to as the “Norway Seed Bank,” safeguards millions of seed samples, representing over 930,000 varieties of food crops. This facility serves as the world’s ultimate backup, housing the most extensive collection of agricultural biodiversity. “Inside this building is 13,000 years of agricultural history,” states Brian Lainoff, lead partnerships coordinator of the Crop Trust, the organization managing the vault, as he opens the massive steel entrance.
It’s hard to imagine a more isolated location than Svalbard’s icy wilderness. Reaching the northernmost point commercially accessible by air, Svalbard is a vast, white, frozen landscape, sparsely populated except for the town of Longyearbyen. This extreme remoteness was a key factor in selecting Svalbard as the home for the Global Seed Vault.
While often called the “doomsday” vault, evoking images of a post-apocalyptic seed reserve, its primary purpose is to protect against more common, localized threats to gene banks worldwide. These threats are precisely why the vault was opened, and why during a visit by TIME, new deposits from India, Pakistan, and Mexico were being added alongside crucial samples from war-torn Syria. “There are big and small doomsdays going on around the world every day. Genetic material is being lost all over the globe,” explains Marie Haga, executive director of the Crop Trust. This particular deposit event offered a chance to replenish and diversify global seed security.
The vault’s nickname, “doomsday vault,” seems fitting as you approach the stark concrete wedge marking the entrance against the snowy backdrop. Svalbard’s isolation was deliberately chosen to ensure security. “It is away from the places on earth where you have war and terror, everything maybe you are afraid of in other places. It is situated in a safe place,” confirms Bente Naeverdal, the property manager responsible for the vault’s daily operations. Interestingly, it shares this remote sanctuary with another repository dedicated to preserving global heritage: the Arctic World Archive, safeguarding data for governments and institutions, located in a nearby mine.
Entering the facility leads into a tunnel-like antechamber filled with the hum of electrical and cooling systems essential for maintaining a stable internal temperature. Beyond another door lies a long, concrete tunnel, brightly lit and stretching 430 feet into the mountain’s interior. At the tunnel’s end, a secure chamber acts as a further protective layer before reaching the seed vaults themselves.
Three vault chambers branch off from this central area, but currently, only one is actively used. Its entrance is visibly iced over, a clear indication of the sub-zero temperatures maintained within. Inside, seeds are meticulously stored in vacuum-sealed silver packets and test tubes, organized in boxes stacked floor to ceiling on shelves. While seemingly lacking monetary value, these boxes contain potentially invaluable resources for the future of global food security.
Over the last half-century, agricultural practices have undergone a dramatic transformation, with technological advancements enabling large-scale crop production. However, this increase in yield has come at the cost of biodiversity. Currently, a mere 30 crops account for 95% of global food-energy needs. A stark example is China, where only 10% of the rice varieties cultivated in the 1950s are still in use today. Similarly, the U.S. has lost over 90% of its fruit and vegetable varieties since the beginning of the 20th century. This reliance on monoculture agriculture makes food supplies increasingly vulnerable to threats like diseases and drought.
The Svalbard vault’s collection includes wild and heirloom varieties, many no longer in common cultivation and some existing only within these seed collections. This genetic diversity is crucial. It holds the potential to provide the necessary DNA traits for developing new crop strains resilient to future challenges, whether global or regional. For example, one of the 200,000 rice varieties stored might possess the genes needed to adapt rice to higher temperatures or resist a new pest or disease. This is especially vital in the face of climate change. “Not too many think about crop diversity as being so fundamentally important, but it is. It is almost as important as water and air,” emphasizes Haga. “Seeds generally are the basis for everything. Not only what we eat, but what we wear, nature all about us.”
Globally, there are approximately 1,700 seed banks, also known as gene banks. This network actively collects, preserves, and shares seeds to advance agricultural research and the development of new crop varieties. The Svalbard vault, established in 2008, functions as a crucial backup for these institutions, safeguarding copies of their vast collections. The concept originated in the 1980s with Cary Fowler, former executive director of the Crop Trust, and gained momentum after the UN’s International Seed Treaty in 2001. Funded and operated by the Norwegian government in partnership with the Crop Trust, the vault aims to house duplicates of every unique seed variety held in global gene banks, nearing its millionth accession. It also plays a vital role in assisting gene banks when their collections are lost or damaged.
At the end of one seed row in the vault, a significant gap, recently filled, tells a powerful story. The black boxes appear identical to others, yet they represent a long and arduous journey. The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), a leading agricultural research organization, was forced to evacuate its headquarters near Aleppo, Syria, due to the civil war. While international staff were relocated in 2012, Syrian researchers bravely remained to protect equipment and even livestock.
However, as conflict intensified, they had to abandon their gene bank, home to one of the world’s most valuable seed collections, including ancient wheat and barley varieties. ICARDA re-established its operations in Morocco and Lebanon, and in 2015, using seeds withdrawn from the Svalbard vault – the first withdrawal ever made – they restarted their gene bank. These seeds, awakened from their frozen state, were planted in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and Morocco. Their subsequent generations were carefully harvested and processed for return to Svalbard. In late February, ICARDA returned the seed varieties they had borrowed, completing a symbolic cycle. “These seeds have come full circle,” explains Lainoff.
The Aleppo gene bank wasn’t the first to be threatened by conflict. Gene banks in Afghanistan and Iraq had previously been destroyed, along with irreplaceable genetic material not backed up in Svalbard. Beyond armed conflict, natural disasters also pose a threat. The Philippine national gene bank, for example, suffered damage from typhoon flooding and a subsequent fire. However, a persistent and widespread threat to gene banks globally is underfunding.
Severely under-resourced, many gene banks lack the necessary means to properly store and protect their seed collections. The Crop Trust is actively raising funds for an endowment to ensure the long-term viability of the world’s 1,700 gene bank facilities, allowing them to continue safeguarding global biodiversity.
History provides stark examples of the dedication to seed preservation. One of the most historically significant seed deposits in the Svalbard vault originates from the Vavilov Research Institute in St. Petersburg, one of the world’s earliest seed collections. During the siege of Leningrad, a group of scientists barricaded themselves within the seed storage rooms to protect the collection from both starving citizens and the German army.
As the siege dragged on, tragically, several scientists died of starvation. Surrounded by edible seeds and plant material, they steadfastly refused to consume any, such was their unwavering belief in the seeds’ vital importance for Russia’s post-war recovery and the future of humankind. Dmitri Ivanov, one of these scientists, reportedly perished surrounded by bags of rice.
In an era marked by geopolitical instability and uncertainty, the Svalbard vault stands as a remarkable and hopeful example of international cooperation for the common good. Any country or organization can deposit seeds, irrespective of political differences or diplomatic considerations. Red boxes from North Korea sit alongside black boxes from the U.S., and boxes from Ukraine are placed above seeds from Russia. “The seeds don’t care that there are North Korean seeds and South Korean seeds in the same aisle,” Lainoff observes. “They are cold and safe up there, and that’s all that really matters.”
Reporting for this article was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
