Sponsor-A-Seed Progress!

Good Morning SuperForesters!

As we wrote on Monday, the Millennium Seed Bank is in a financial crunch, and we're trying to raise the not-astronomical sum of $2,995.00 to sponsor the survival of a single seed.

Well, the following SuperForesters have stepped up and put their $$$ where their <3's are. A massive SuperForest "Thank you!" to SuperForesters:

Sakae
Tina
Spencer
Erika
Emily
George
Barbara
April
Niki
Michelle
&
Spoon!

Y'all are an inspiration and your generosity is matched only by your attractiveness.

So, in one day, guess how much we've raised?...

$340.00!

We've raised nearly an eighth of our target!
Nice! We can totally do this.

Would you like to help Save a Seed?
Donate Here:

If you SuperForesters at home know of any other bloggers or writers who you think would be sympathetic to the plight of the Millennium Seed Bank or like the idea of sponsoring a single seed, please write to them, us, or both: superforestnyc(at)gmail(dot)com.

I'm really excited about this.

Love to All and thank you.

-Jackson

p.s. We have emailed the Seed Bank to inquire as to their non-profit status and will have an update as soon as they reply. Love.

SuperForest's Letter to the Millennium Seed Bank

Hey Y'all!

We just sent this email to: msbsci@kew.org

"Dear Millennium Seed Bank,

Having read about your recent cash struggles, we thought it best to add a donation button to our site and see if we couldn't raise some funds for you.
We hope to raise £2000, which we heard is approximately what it costs to ensure the survival of a single seed.

Maybe we could help further by putting forward the idea of "seed hosting," where more folks could also add donation buttons to sponsor single seeds?
This could help both financially and energetically as word gets out of the situation your wonderful and worthwhile project is facing.

In the meantime, we shall begin the process of raising the £2000 pounds and will spread the word to all that are interested.

Thank you very much for all that you do.

Yours truly,

SuperForest"

Cool.

I personally am going to forward these two posts to everyone on my various email chains, in the hopes of building further momentum.

Much love,

Jackson

The Millenium Seed Bank is in Trouble. What Can We Do to Help?

(via flickr user andyp uk.)

Dear SuperForest,

I read yesterday that the Millennium Seed Bank is in dire financial straights.

What is the Millennium Seed Bank?

From Wikipedia:

"The Millennium Seed Bank Project is an international conservation project coordinated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Launched in the year 2000... its purpose is to provide an "insurance policy" against the extinction of plants in the wild by storing seeds for future use. The storage facilities consist of large underground frozen vaults preserving the world's largest collection of seeds.

In April 2007 it banked its billionth seed, the Oxytenanthera abyssinica, a type of African bamboo."

"But the cooling of the global economy is threatening to freeze the whole project. All it takes is 2,000 pounds to save one seed, and with at least four species of plants vanishing every year, conservationists believe this is an excellent value."

-via russiatoday.com.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Okay, one seed's continued survival cost £2000 pounds.
£2000 English pounds is currently valued at $2995.8 US dollars.

I propose to you, dear friends and readers, that we raise this sum, via a paypal donation bin, and that as a group we host the continued existence of one seed. The SuperForest seed!

We may not be able to support the entire project, but we can certainly support one seed.

Donate Here:

Hosting this as yet nameless seed can be our gift to the future. It can also show how beautifully technology can work to support and buttress worthwhile thoughts and movements from the forces of economic downturns and the like.

The Millenium Seed Bank needs us just as much as we need it.

Can we do it?

One seed for SuperForest! And SuperForest for one seed!

Let's do this thing.

Massive love to all!

-Jackson


P.S. Would you like to visit the Seed Bank? Click here for info on how.

Millennium Seed Bank site.
Millennium Seed Bank wiki.


UPDATE

To let you keep track of your own fabulous donations we created this counter.

Svalbard Global Seed Vault

Apparently, some folks are taking our rapidly changing climate seriously. Hence the construction of a seriously well thought out seed vault on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near the town of Longyearbyen (population 1900) in the remote arctic Svalbard archipelago.

Think of it as a Noah's Ark for plants.

From wikipedia:

"The Svalbard International Seed Vault's mission is to store as many seeds known to humans as possible, under the terms of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The goal is to prevent important agricultural and wild plants from becoming rare or extinct in the event of a global disaster such as global warming, a meteorite strike, nuclear or biological warfare, or gene pollution from transgenic plants. There are already over 1400 local seedbanks around the world, but many are in politically unstable or environmentally threatened nations. When this seedbank is built, the vault will be secure and isolated from much of the world's population."

It's nice to know it will be there. Let's hope we don't have to rely on it.
Wait a second, I think we should immediately begin construction of our OWN seed vault! We cannot allow a seed vault gap!

Here's their site: Svalbard Global Seed Vault