[Oberlist] EU# arctic vault to save world's seeds

[US Vladimir]

Vladimir Us
artist & curator
http://www.oberliht.org.md> From: savenodesign-request la greenpeppermagazine.org> Subject: SaveNoDesign Digest, Vol 11, Issue 15> To: savenodesign la greenpeppermagazine.org> Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:00:05 +0100> > > Message: 2> Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:50:22 +0100> From: "Alex Foti" <alex.foti la gmail.com>> Subject: [savenodesign] arctic vault to save world's seeds> To: savenodesign la greenpeppermagazine.org> > Arctic vault to safeguard world's seeds> > By Fiona Harvey in Svalbard> > Published: February 26 2008 01:36 | Last updated: February 26 2008 01:36> > The door will open on Tuesday on an Arctic "doomsday" vault that will> safeguard seed samples from the world's most important food crops> against possible disaster, in scenarios from drastic climate change to> nuclear war.> > The first seeds ? of rice plants ? are to be delivered this morning to> the Svalbard global seed vault, dug out of a snow-covered island 800> miles (1,280km) from the North Pole. They will be kept at 18?C below> freezing. The intention is to preserve hundreds of millions of seeds> from varieties of nearly 100 of the world's main crops.> > "It's an insurance policy," said Cary Fowler, executive director of> the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which built the vault with $8m> (?5.4m, ?4.1m) from the Norwegian government.> > In the event of a sudden disaster such as a nuclear attack or an> asteroid strike, the seed bank would hold the means to restock the> Earth's agriculture.> > It would also protect against the much more likely ? some scientists> would even say inevitable ? effects of global warming by providing> seeds for researchers to breed new crops that can to cope with a> changing ?climate.> > Mr Fowler explained: "We are losing crop varieties and crop diversity> all over the place ... [even as] climate change is affecting the way> some crops grow."> > He pointed to varieties of rice sensitive to temperature rises much> smaller than those forecasted by climatologists as the result of> global warming: if exposed to a temperature rise of 1?C during a> crucial period of growth, the crop's yield is cut by one-tenth.> > If agricultural scientists could find strains of rice that were able> to withstand higher temperatures, they could breed varieties to> maintain yields.> > At present, there is no single seed repository. Collections are> maintained haphazardly worldwide, meaning samples are lost. Sometimes> samples of potentially important varieties of plants, along with the> genes that could have conferred benefits on new plants, become> extinct.> > Seeds from the 1.5m crop varieties known to be in the world's> collections will be sent to Svalbard, which will form the repository> of last resort, dispensing seeds for crop varieties to be regrown only> when all other known examples are gone.> > Tuesday's delivery of seeds will be attended by Jos? Manuel Barroso,> the president of the European Commission, and Jens Stoltenberg, the> prime minister of Norway.> > The Global Crop Diversity Trust has raised $100m of the endowment of> about $300m needed for the upkeep of the vault and the process of> collecting and experimenting on seeds.> > Samples will be kept in watertight foil packets behind blastproof> doors and concrete walls a metre thick. The vault's remote location ?> 60m under the permafrost of the island of Spitsbergen, in the> archipelago of Svalbard, one of the most northerly points of land on> Earth ? is intended to keep the seeds at the low temperatures required> while also safe from intruders.> > > _______________________________________________> SaveNoDesign mailing list> SaveNoDesign la greenpeppermagazine.org> http://greenpeppermagazine.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/savenodesign> > > End of SaveNoDesign Digest, Vol 11, Issue 15> ********************************************
_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE!
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
-------------- partea următoare --------------
Un ataşament HTML a fost eliminat   
URL: http://idash.org/pipermail/oberlist/attachments/20080228/f9944b09/attachment.html