Some researchers argue that another great extinction of species has begun on our planet. According to UN studies, about 28% of animals and plants have become extinct from the 60s of the twentieth century to our time. The main initiator of such a reduction in species diversity is man.
By turning the world into a scorched desert, calling this process economic growth, mankind is destroying the natural habitats of many species. Since at the current level of development of our civilization it is impossible to stop the process of destruction of the biosphere, people chose a different path.
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A network of genetic banks has been created in safe places on the planet, the main task of which is to preserve the entire species diversity of the Earth. Where are the so-called “Doomsday vaults” located, and what are they?
Ever since a man took up the plow and began to cultivate the soil, his mind was concerned with the idea of preserving the seeds of plant crops grown in his fields. Already 10,000 years ago, in the first settled settlements of farmers, barns and huge pits were created in the center of the settlements, into which the obtained crops were poured for storage.
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The grain, strewn with fragrant herbs to ward off pests and sheltered from the scorching sun, was a strategic reserve of the settlement in case of famine or siege by enemies. It was these sacred barns, on the site of which the first temples later appeared, that were the first repositories of the Doomsday.
After many centuries, already in the twentieth century, with the deterioration of the ecological situation and with the development of technology, seed storage received a different function. A network of 1400 genetic banks has been created all over the planet, in which states store the seeds of most plant species growing on their territory.
This is done in case of complete extinction of any plant. Seed banks in the future will help bring back to life those types of vegetation that have died under the onslaught of the sands of the expanding deserts.
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Genetic banks will be useful to our descendants, who will have to restore "the lungs of our world" - actively cut down Amazonian forests. Many medicinal plants growing in mountain meadows, but gradually dying out due to climate change and radioactive pollution, in the future will become part of the new biosphere, which will be recreated by the next generations.
But since there are still many armed conflicts in the world, it was decided to build a single global genetic repository, in which absolutely all plant species will be stored. Such a repository was opened in 2008 in Norway on the island of Svalbard, part of the Svalbard archipelago.
Both the Norwegian government and the foundations of such billionaires as Rockefeller and Bill Gates were involved in financing the construction of the storage facility on Svalbard. The bunker, built in just a year and a half, meets all the conditions for long-term and high-quality storage of seeds. The complex, carved into the rock and located in the permafrost zone, maintains a constant temperature of -18 ° C in the storage facilities.
Even if all equipment fails in the genetic bank, the seeds will not suffer. The subpolar conditions of the archipelago will not allow the temperature in the storage facilities to rise above -3.5 ° C. This temperature, as well as the vacuum packing of the seeds and the reduced oxygen content in the storages will ensure the preservation of the material for 1000 years.
Although many experts are worried about the fate of the Svaldbar storage facility in the event of a melting permafrost, there is no need to worry about this either. The genetic bank is at a sufficient height and is not threatened with flooding.
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At the moment, the seeds of three million plant species have been collected in the Svaldbar storage facility. Seeds for Svalbard are supplied from state seed banks, and are the property of the countries that provided them. The Norwegian seed bank is like a planetary piggy bank in case of a global natural disaster or atomic war. By the way, the location of the bunker on the island was chosen not only because of the cool climate.
It's just that in the event of a nuclear holocaust, hardly anyone will bomb an archipelago located at the edge of the world and on which there is nothing but a few villages and a "crowd" of polar bears. Although the Svaldbar storage facility is completely safe and perfectly copes with its functions, at the moment there are two more projects for the creation of similar complexes in the UK and Russia.
The British project for the construction of another global seed fund involves the creation of an underground high-tech complex on the lands of West Wessex. To be honest, I see no point in creating a global genetic bank in the British Isles.
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After all, if standard genetic banks do an excellent job with their functions in peacetime and help bring extinct plants back to life, then during global disasters, due to possible energy problems, the British mega-storage will melt or become simply inaccessible. In the event of an asteroid fall, Britain could be flooded, and in the event of a world war, good old England has a high chance of becoming the epicenter of nuclear explosions.
I very much doubt that the surviving inhabitants of the islands will try to revive the biosphere of their homeland instead of simply evacuating somewhere in Siberia.
By the way about Siberia. It is in the eastern part of this richest region, in Yakutia, that a cryostorage similar to the Svaldbar Global Seed Fund was built in 2012. The main difference between the Russian project is that it is precisely Russian and is intended for storing vegetation species that grow on the territory of the federation.
Also, the Yakut cryostorage is completely autonomous. Warehouses with seeds are charged with cold from the external environment, without the participation of any energy systems. Such a refrigeration system allows maintaining the temperature at 6-8 degrees below zero, which is the optimal level of cold to maintain the viability of the seeds.
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Independence from external power sources increases the chances of the storage facility to save seed material even in the event of a complete collapse of the region's energy system. At the moment, the seed bank contains one hundred thousand species of vegetation that were transferred from the genetic banks of the Soviet era.
In the future, the management of the Yakut Permafrost Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, on the territory of which the storage facility is located, plans to expand the bunker threefold and invest about a million more types of seeds in it. The location of the Russian storage facility in the heart of Siberia, far from the seas and mountains, at a great distance from tectonic faults, guarantees the preservation of the species diversity of Russia from complete disappearance or mutation.
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The Doomsday Vaults are designed to protect the earth's biosphere from impoverishment or complete extinction. The seeds will be waiting for their time. And it remains to be hoped that these reserves will be used by our wise descendants only to return the former wealth to the impoverished earth's biosphere, and not in attempts to revive the world from the ashes of an atomic fire or after a global cosmic catastrophe.