when the civil war began – a series of dangerous journeys by car, using hotel fridges to store the seeds overnight. The 20th century saw the loss of
three quarters of the planet’s crop diversity. Today two in five plant species are at risk of extinction in the face of climate change, habitat destruction and new and emerging pests and diseases. At the forefront of the race to save them are the 1,500 or so seed banks scattered around the world, from the high tech ‘doomsday vault’ of Svalbard, shielded in permafrost, to the tended fields of the Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute (EBI) in Addis Ababa. Some specialise in crops, like Potato Park in Peru, which despite its name also conserves other Andean crops like maize and quinoa; others, like the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank (MSB) in Sussex, store 16% of the world’s wild
plant species, including some that are highly endangered or extinct in the wild, as well as almost of all the UK’s native plant species. Their collection of crop wild relatives could be especially useful as they may retain traits that hold the key to new, more resilient varieties of the plants we use for food and materials. There is no universal specification
for a seed bank. The Millennium Seed Bank’s collection is kept in suspended animation at -20°C in a floodproof, radiationproof and bombproof building. Other seed banks that lack such facilities send out their collections to be regrown and harvested periodically or operate as living collections. Some of this is down to funding – not every country can afford a Svalbard or an MSB – but for others it’s a choice. The EBI in Ethiopia isn’t a gene bank, but
practices in-situ conservation – working with farmers to achieve ‘conservation through use’. In contrast, just over 1,000km from
the North Pole, the Svalbard seed bank functions more like a safe-deposit box for its users – you can only take out what you put in. It’s essentially a back- up system and it’s already had its first (and so far only) withdrawal, as ICARDA began filling the gaps in its holdings after fleeing Aleppo. Others have a wider remit and are actively leading the collection of plants, and the breeding of new varieties. Here at Eden, the National Wildflower Centre’s new seed bank is working with the Millennium Seed Bank to help save some of the UK’s rarest wild plants. We spoke to its manager Fern Carroll-Smith to find out more.
Photo: The Millennium Seed Bank ©RBG Kew/Wolfgang Stuppy
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