The world's media comes to Svalbard

 

30 journalists from all over the world will visit the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on Wednesday.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGS) is taking shape. Construction work started in April 2007 and the first blastings were performed in May. The facility will be opened on 28 February 2008.

On Wednesday, 30 journalists from media and press bureaux in Europe, Asia, the Americas and Africa - plus of course Norway - will be able to inspect the vault.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is taking shape. Date 09.08.2007.
Photo:  Jenny-Marie Johnsen.

Press briefings
The visit to the facility will be led by Project Manager Magnus Bredeli Tveiten from the Norwegian construction body Statsbygg. Part of the tour will include press briefings by Minister of the Environment Helen Bjørnøy, the head of the UN's Climate Secretariat Yvo de Boer, Minister of Development Erik Solheim, Head of Secretariat Cary Fowler from Global Crop Diversity Trust and the governor of Svalbard.

Four million seeds
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is being constructed as a cave excavated in the permafrost just outside of Longyearbyen. The SGS is intended to ensure genetic variety for the world's food plants by storing duplicates of seed collections from gene banks all over the world, and will have a storage capacity of more than four million different seeds. If seed samples are lost somewhere in the world due to natural disasters, wars or resource shortages, they may be re-established with seeds from Svalbard.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault will open on 26 February 2008.

For more details, contact:
Communications Manager Ole G. Hertzenberg
Tel. +47 90 10 04 42
E-mail:   ole.g.hertzenberg@faktotum.no
www.seedvault.no