As the climate crisis worsens, across the world a loose network of organisations are working together to preserve the world’s plant species – not only for future generations, but here and now.


In May this year, the National Gene Bank of Plants of Ukraine in Kharkiv had an unexpected and unwelcome deposit in the form of a Russian artillery shell. Luckily no one was hurt in the attack, but it made an already precarious situation worse. The seed bank’s collection is the tenth largest in the world, containing over 150,000 samples of 1,800 plant species, and less than 5% of its collection is backed up elsewhere. It’s not clear whether the bombing


was intentional or not, but the gene bank doesn’t just hold Ukrainian seeds – it contains seeds from around the world, many of which are irreplaceable. The seeds are used by scientists from other countries – including Russia – to develop new varieties that are able to survive the changing climate. While most of the collection is safe in an underground warehouse, some of the samples destroyed were thought to be over 100 years old. The Kharkiv gene bank isn’t the


only seed bank to find itself caught up in the turmoil of war. During the siege of Leningrad scientists at the world’s first seed bank, the Vavilov Research Institute, found themselves with the stark choice of protecting their seeds or starvation, heroically choosing the latter. In 2012, the International Centre for Agricultural Research (ICARDA) was forced to move its collection from Aleppo in Syria to The Lebanon


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