My memory tells me it was probably until the 1980s or so where environmentalists and scientists who were trying to preserve endangered animal species worked very hard to accommodate them into zoos. The logic being that the day would come where we could release them into the wild and they could reestablish themselves.
After quite a bit of soul searching, and the zoos were full of species that had no hope of ever being returned to the wild, came the understanding that many of these species were becoming extinct because of habitat loss and unless that was addressed there was no future for them. In fact by building these zoos we were actually doing the animals a disservice, because we were eliminating any justification for preserving their habitat and just locking them into a prison where they could never be freed.
I don’t know that I completely agree with it, but GRAIN takes an interesting point of view by suggesting we may be doing something similar with the construction of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway.
Are we just building a giant cage for our genetic heritage, so we can just cast it aside and forget about it? Are we only taking away the arguments against polluting the world genepools with GM material and ensuring there are no remaining arguments for biodiversity? Are we locking up our seeds into a zoo from which there will never be any hope of ever leaving?
Our friends over at the Biodiversity Weblog don’t seem convinced.
It’s certainly something we need to watch and pay attention to.
I have heard about this “museum” but I am confused. Even in perfect conditions seeds only remain viable for a certain amount of time. Then what??
Maybe it is better than doing nothing – I don’t know.To me it is madness to destroy what has taken millions of years to evolve, just for the sake of 5 minutes wealth for some crazy humans. It is terrifying to think how precarious life on earth is becoming and how locked-in governments are to the desires of huge multi-national companies that will do anything to get more money.
Seeds were the basis of the first civilisations on earth and their destruction will not doubt herald the end of the last of civilisation.
Certainly something to think about and watch closely. By saving seed for numerous years, what will happen if we need them but our climate has changed some. Will these seeds and plants be able to adapt compared to ones taken from the year prior.
Sure, seeds of all varieties should be stored in a cool place … until spring comes again!
To me, this whole Svalbard project sounds very zoo-like too, with the usual greenwashing mumbo-jumbo.
I can only be happy, that a seed zoo opens in Svalbard. I think seeds will never be used, and so what? Seeds does not suffer. The seeds stored there is a potential good thing, although it might also be considered stolen goods.
To have the juridic system acknowlege the seeds as stolen goods require a political change. We, our common citizens and the politicians are to blame, not the seed zoo.
A quick solution: Save the seeds yourselves, share them and teach others how to save and share.
I have visited the genebank in Sweden, common for the scandinavian countries. Scientists there prefer seeds to be saved by growing out every year, no doubt. But it is impractical to grow out all the seeds every year. It would become very expensive. They work on methods to save as much seeds as possible, for as little money as possible.
What then happens to the seeds is and will allways be a political question – a question of power, like it or not.
I do not believe in patented plants, I believe it is an american thing, and I have never met a european who would argue for that, unless (s)he worked in the international seedtrade. It has been accepted because of a strong american press, but can the american goverment uphold such a pressure for ever? Who else will support the multinational seed giants in future? China?
Meanwhile share fair seeds 🙂
Curtis: That’s one of the problem with genebanks now, and I think the GRAIN article was trying to suggest it as well. There are many plants in genebanks now, but some of them go back hundreds of years from the time they were in true commercial production. Since we now live in an era of climate change and different crop pests, many of these plants are useless as commercial crops. Some of them barley even grow. This is like the point I was trying to make on the heirloom tomato post, with many heirloom tomato varieties being in a very bad state.
Kate, Lieven and Søren: The three of you are among the people I have the highest respect for your opinions, and I consider you to be among the most knowledgeable people on this subject. At least as far as bloggers go. I don’t really know what to make from these very different points of view.
I guess my feeling is that as a ‘doomsday vault’ it has a really questionable purpose. Will the seeds stored in it really be useful after a nuclear war? I don’t think so. Will it protect us from GM contamination? I don’t think it will do this either, because the seeds will have to be grown out from time to time, and can be contaminated then.
Like Søren pointed out and the GRAIN article explained, the whole thing is really a power grab anyway. It doesn’t really seem to have any legitimate purpose when it comes to protecting our genetic resources, other than perhaps providing a fall back for national seed banks, but I seriously question if this is the right way to do this.
At the same time, given the name and stated purpose, it seems like it could provide justification for not worrying about biodiversity issues.
Since all crop varieties need to be grown out periodically, the more often the better, and since our genetic heritage can only be protected through promoting biodiversity, it seems like the only real solution is to promote these crop varieties in agriculture. This would have to go together with opposing GM contamination and environmental destruction. While this is what we are all doing as best as we can, it seems like this may be harder while a Global Seed Vault exists.
I’ve found your post, along with the Grain article fascinating. When I heard about the opening of the seed vault, it seemed like a good idea. Reading more about it now, I’m definitely questioning any reliance on it.
Patrick thanks for the piece, (I think :). I haven’t been following this at all, I may’ve heard about construction starting while back, but that slipped out of mind.
At first glance, reading the GRAIN and Biodiversity links, I’d tend to the GRAIN view. From a no doubt very simplistic assessment, I could think, “It can’t hurt.” But will it have no ramifications for overall seed policy? I read that the GSV is apparently a “backup” for well over a thousand seed banks around the world. The whole idea of the world’s SEED being backed up like computer data seems preposterous, and the existence of this “system” no doubt has impacts on all sorts of policy (like, seed rights). That doesn’t sound good. When folks feel “protected”, we tend to do even stupider, greedier things, it seems.
On a more cynical level, I also read that the GSV cost $8 million. My instinctive reaction was, “That’s cheap!” I looked around, and the GSV apparently mainly “belongs” to Norway. For a mere $8 million dollars and a bit of Arctic land, one country gets to be the world’s seed protector. It sounds like a sweet PR deal. What I’m getting at here is, a serious GSV might have a system where farmers, gardeners, PEOPLE all over the world could actually access and interact with it: the Vault, enhanced by a huge computer network and a full-time staff. We mail and FedEx all sorts of junk all over the planet, practically overnight, why can’t we have a grand, responsible, Internet-based plan to properly share seed. It would be expensive, but this is our planet’s lifeblood here… I’m not saying this would be BETTER, but at least it wouldn’t seem so…removed from day-to-day reality. What the GSV is doesn’t sound like much…
I don’t know how wise it is to be sending seed all over the planet, and that’s not the GSV intention, I know, but it ties in to this whole “globalization” concept in the popular imagination…
On a more practical level, let’s say I was heartened to some degree by the GSV, meanwhile, next minute (in this case, almost literally, this happened today) I go to an heirloom seed company and read this: “Due to Customs Regulations we regret we can no longer ship orders to the United States.” Luckily, we’re both in Canada, so I can order (albeit from 3,000 miles away). But I’ve seen these notices popping up in the last 3-4 years on mostly smaller seed company sites on both sides of this particular (US-Canada) border. That means I’d have a hard time getting seed from just a couple hundred miles away, if it’s across the border.
What has this to do with the GSV? To me, it’s yet another example of how, “on the ground”, regulations are making individual, local action harder and harder. It seems part of the general, alarming pattern, where we continue to hear about grand global designs that are supposed to be fixing what increasing local limitations, both regulatory and from the private “corporate” sector, seem to be simultaneously wrecking.
My head is spinning… 🙂
Mike and Kate:
Thanks for the comments.
I never thought before about the $8,000,000 price tag and how cheap that seems. I guess Norway got the good end of that deal!
It does seem like the day-to-day reality for real people is getting harder. When the US government tightens restrictions for seed imports, people living in the US sometimes respond by refusing to export seeds — to make things fair. Everyone loses in the end.
You are right that importing seeds into Canada doesn’t seem to be a problem yet.
What can we do? Just pull up our bootstraps and move forward… Just try to do the best we can.