Just in Case: Saving Seeds in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault

Deep inside a mountain on a Norwegian island near the North Pole, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault stores more than 580 million seeds in three temperature-controlled vaults. Seeds from around the world are kept there as a backup that can be withdrawn and planted, even long after they were deposited. This account explains the vault’s planning, construction, and daily work, as well as climate change, declining crop diversity, and war as reasons for safeguarding seeds.