Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg marked the occasion by filling a special cornerstone with seeds, according to a statement posted on his office's Web site.
``This seed bank is of global importance -- it will be the only one of its kind,'' Stoltenberg said in a speech delivered in front of the mountain where the vault will be built. ``The main aim is to protect the seeds of plants that are important for food and agricultural purposes.''
The 30-million kroner ($4.8-million) vault near Longyearbyen on the island of Svalbard, in the Arctic Circle, will hold as many as 3 million different types of seed from all over the world, according to the Norwegian Agriculture and Food Ministry's Web site. Described by the ministry as a ``Noah's Ark,'' the bank is scheduled to open in September 2007.
Today's event was also attended by Stoltenberg's counterparts from Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland, according to the Global Crop Diversity Trust, a United Nations-linked organization that led the campaign to establish the seed bank.
Cataclysms
``This facility will provide a practical means to reestablish crops obliterated by major disasters,'' Cary Fowler, the trust's executive secretary and lead writer of a study that led to the creation of the vault, said in an e-mailed statement. ``Crop diversity is imperiled not just by a cataclysmic event, such as a nuclear war, but also by natural disasters, accidents, mismanagement, and short-sighted budget cuts.''
The samples will be held in ``black boxes'' that will only be released in the event that all other seed sources have been destroyed or exhausted, according to the trust. The choice of Svalbard to host the vault means that even if refrigeration systems fail, the seeds will be protected because of the Arctic island's permafrost, the trust said.
``Arctic permafrost will act as a natural coolant to protect the samples, which will be stored in watertight foil packages, should a power failure disable refrigeration systems,'' the trust said. ``Despite changes being wrought by global warming, experts believe the deep permafrost will be reliably cool for at least the next 100 years. Even with a complete loss of refrigeration, vault temperatures would never rise above minus 3.5 Celsius or about 27 degrees Fahrenheit.''
The Svalbard vault will be kept secure by a meter (3 feet) of reinforced concrete and a perimeter fence, as well as the remoteness of the island itself, according to the trust.
`Safety Net'
Fowler's study concluded that seeds for most major crops could survive for ``hundreds'' of years, and some grain samples may remain viable for ``thousands'' of years in the vault.
The vault isn't the first attempt by scientists and government to preserve the planet's diversity. The Svalbard bank adds to crop collections in about 1,400 gene banks around the world that are supported by the trust. In July 2004, London's Natural History Museum announced a ``Frozen Ark'' project to preserve the DNA of animals that face extinction.
Stoltenberg said that the Norwegian bank will be important to ensure food security, protect crop variety and to help developing nations which lack storage facilities to preserve their natural resources.
``If seeds stored in a commercial gene bank are destroyed, and this has apparently happened about 40 times to date, the contents of this gene bank will make it possible to replace the seeds which have been lost,'' Stoltenberg said. ``It is our final safety net.''
