News Headline
From Lack Of Diversity To Lack Of Funding, Seed Banks Face A World Of Challenges
Source
Smithsonian
Publication Date
2016-06-17
Gene banks are meant to protect biodiversity, yet they themselves are in need of protection.or almost a decade, researchers at the Svalbard Seed Bank in Norway have been collecting and storing samples of seeds from around the globe, meticulously preserving them in a vault carved 400 feet into the side of a mountain in the Arctic Circle. Then, one day in October of 2015, something unprecedented happened: researchers began taking the seeds out, rolling 138 black boxes containing 38,000 seeds out of the steel and concrete vault, through its doors and back into the world.