An Arctic "doomsday vault" intended to protect the world's food supply in the event of a major cataclysm has been drawn upon for the first time ever. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, as the bank is called, will return 130 of the 325 boxes of seeds that Syrian researchers had originally deposited, The Independent and Reuters report.
The International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas, originally housed in Aleppo, Syria, before the conflict forced it relocate to Beirut, Lebanon, will withdraw wheat, barley, and grasses seeds for study. The center's normal seed purveyor, a vault in Aleppo, has been badly damaged by the Syrian civil war and couldn't make its typical shipment. "Protecting the world's biodiversity in this manner is precisely the purpose of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault," a vault spokesperson told Reuters.
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The Svalbard Vault was built in 2008 and contains 860,000 seed samples, readily accessible in the event of a major war or outbreak of disease. Even in the event of losing power, the vault can remain locked and frozen for 200 years.
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