Svalbard Seed Vault Update

(image via treehugger)

For those of you who read the Dec. 6/07 post about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, here's an update. It seems as though the first shipment of seeds are now making their way to the Vault. Once there, they will help to ensure the survival of indeginous plant species for future Earthlings. Nothing wrong with that.

from treehugger:
"Twenty-one boxes filled with 7,000 unique seed samples from more than 36 African nations were shipped to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a facility being built on a remote island in the Arctic Circle as a repository of last resort for humanity’s agricultural heritage.

The shipment, which was sent by the Ibadan, Nigeria-based International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), consists of thousands of duplicates of unique varieties of domesticated and wild cowpea, maize, soybean, and Bambara groundnut. The seeds from the IITA genebank in Ibadan, Nigeria, were packed in 21 boxes weighing a total of 330 kg. The processing by IITA staff took several months, and the boxes were packaged over a three-day period, with 10 staff checking the accession list, reporting errors, and adjusting the inventory, as needed."