The Svalbard International Seed Vault on Spitsbergen, one of four islands that make up Svalbard, aims to safeguard the world’s plant heritage from future catastrophes. The collection and maintenance of the collection is under the auspices of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which seeks “conservation of crop diversity in perpetuity.?EUR??,,????'?? Construction begins in March, and the seed bank is scheduled to open in 2008.

“We want a safety net,?EUR??,,????'?? Dr. Cary Fowler, the trust’s executive director told BBC News. ?EUR??,,????'??We looked at radiation levels inside the mountain, and we looked at the area’s geological structure. We also modeled climate change in a drastic form 200 years into the future, which included the melting of ice sheets at the North and South Poles, and Greenland, to make sure that this site was above the resulting water level.”

While the vault will be designed to protect the specimens from catastrophic events it could also replenish national seed banks, such as the case in September 2006 when a typhoon ripped through the Philippines and destroyed its seed bank.