How it began
The idea of a global security storage facility in Svalbard for duplicates of seeds held in gene banks was discussed from the 1980s. A committee chaired by Cary Fowler carried out a feasibility study in 2004, which found Svalbard the most suitable place. In October 2004 the Norwegian government committed to fund and build the vault. The Nordic prime ministers announced the initiative in Svalbard in June 2006, and the vault opened near Longyearbyen on February 26, 2008.
Before it existed
In the mid-1980s the Nordic Gene Bank began keeping security copies of the Nordic seed collection in a steel container inside Coal Mine 3 in Longyearbyen, using the permafrost. A later review found that storage in a coal mine with periodic high levels of hydrocarbon gases was not safe enough. The new halls were therefore carved into solid rock. The vault is not in an abandoned coal mine, a common misunderstanding.
How it works
The vault has three caverns dug into a mountain at the end of a 100 meter tunnel, with capacity for 4.5 million seed samples. Seeds are sealed in three-ply foil packages, placed in boxes on shelving, and kept at minus 18 degrees Celsius. Deep permafrost keeps the seeds cold even if the artificial cooling fails. Samples stay the property of the depositor, and only the depositing institution can get access to its seeds. Storage is free to depositors.
What changed first
More than 320,000 seed accessions were deposited as part of the opening ceremony. By the first anniversary the total had reached about 400,000 samples. Norway paid the construction cost of about 45 million kroner. In 2007 Norway had signed a long-term agreement with NordGen and the Crop Trust for funding, management and operations.
What lasted
After 10 years the number of deposited samples reached 1,060,987, about two thirds of them from international agricultural research centers, covering about 5,000 species. One institute, ICARDA, whose gene bank had been in Syria, has asked for seeds back. They were shipped on two occasions, sown and multiplied, and ICARDA has redeposited seeds since 2017.
Where it stands today
Water entered the entrance tunnel in October 2016 after unusually warm and wet weather, without reaching the storage halls. The Norwegian agency Statsbygg completed improvements in 2019, including waterproofing the tunnel walls and adding drainage. As of June 2025 the vault held 1,355,591 accessions. The Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food is responsible for it, and NordGen manages the seed operation.
