Tree of Life: CIFOR-ICRAF hands over 120K seeds of 19 African tree species to Doomsday Vault

Hyderabad: CIFOR-ICRAF’s CEO Éliane Ubalijoro delivered a large deposit of seeds at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, bringing its total deposits to over 1.1 million seeds of 177 species in the world.

This particular lot has 120,000 seeds of 19 native African tree species, such as the iconic baobab, also known as the ‘Tree of Life,’ to safeguard biodiversity and support climate resilience. This reinforced the organization’s long-standing commitment to tree conservation.

The vault already contains thousands of rice varieties from India, Pakistan, and China.

What is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault

This seed vault is deep inside a mountain in a remote location in Longyearbyen, Norway. With 38% of the world’s trees at risk of extinction, securing native species is critical for biodiversity, climate adaptation, and sustainable agroforestry.

There are cooling systems to keep the temperature within the vault consistent. There is a wide concrete tunnel going 430 ft. down into the mountain. At the end of this corridor is a chamber, an added layer of security to protect the vaults containing the seeds. The seeds are stored in vacuum-packed silver packets and test tubes in large boxes that are neatly stacked on floor-to-ceiling shelves. These boxes potentially hold the keys to the future of global food and agriculture.

This vault is designed to withstand a wide range of disasters: floods, blizzards, erupting volcanoes, global warming, war, and nuclear disasters. It was launched in 2008 and has served as the planet's seed bank. This includes the genetic codes of thousands of crops and plant species, too.

Located inside a mountain in Norway

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, often referred to as the ‘doomsday’ vault, is located deep inside a mountain with carved-out caves. Here, food crop seeds from around the planet are stored, and their genetic codes preserved for a potential apocalypse. It is essentially a huge safety deposit box, holding the world’s largest collection of agricultural biodiversity. The Global Seed Vault has been called the ‘doomsday’ vault, which conjures up an image of a reserve of seeds for use in case of an apocalyptic event or a global catastrophe. But it is also the much smaller, localized destruction and threats facing gene banks all over the world that the vault was designed to protect against.

Seed vault provides insurance

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault provides insurance against the catastrophic loss of crop diversity held in traditional gene banks around the world. It is owned and administered by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food on behalf of the Kingdom of Norway and is established as a service to the world community. The Crop Trust provides support for the ongoing operations of the Seed Vault, as well as funding for the preparation and shipment of seeds from developing countries to the facility. The Nordic Genetic Resources Center (NordGen) operates the facility and maintains a public online database of samples stored in the Seed Vault. An international advisory council oversees the management and operations of the Seed Vault.

CIFOR-ICRAF

The Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) harnesses the power of trees, forests, and agroforestry landscapes to address the most pressing global challenges of our time – biodiversity loss, climate change, food security, livelihoods, and inequity.CIFOR-ICRAF has been depositing seeds at the vault since 2008, supporting global reforestation and food security efforts.

Wars in Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria, and Gaza

Wars have made it imperative to store seeds and save them from extinction. Sudan is depositing samples of 15 species of crops, consisting of several varieties of sorghum, a plant that is very important in that country. The Doomsday Vault has played a leading role in rebuilding seed collections damaged during the war in Syria.