The Norwegian Government inaugurated yesterday the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the remote Spitsbergen Island in the Arctic Circle, receiving shipments of 100 million seeds that originated in over 100 countries.

Fig. 1: Entrance to the Global Seed Vault at Longyearbyen (Spitsbergen, Svalbard, Norway)

Current deposits range from unique varieties of major African and Asian food staples such as maize, rice, wheat, cowpea, and sorghum to European and South American varieties of eggplant, lettuce, barley, and potato; but also include representatives of important trees used worldwide as sources of firewood, timber or raw fibre as Acacia, Pinus and Eucalyptus.