Cary Fowler is the executive director of the Arctic Seed Vault, also known as the Doomsday Seed Vault, an internationally-organized effort to protect one of the planet’s greatest resources – the regionally diverse crops that are planted worldwide. The vault is being dug into a mountainside near the village of Longyearbyen, Svalbard – a remote group of Norwegian islands that are reachable only by plane and boat. The vault’s contents will be protected by a natural, thick layer of rock and permafrost, which will keep the seeds frozen even if electricity is lost.
The idea for the seed vault dates back to the 1980s and became a reality through the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources. Cary Fowler talks about crop diversity, the disasters that threaten our resources and how the seed vault will be managed.
Music Break -- Soul Motion - Cal Tjader