The Mother of All Seed Banks

The mother of all seed banks (to be honest, before reading this, I did not even know there exists such a plan to backup the world's most important plants) will be operational 26 February 2008 at a temperature of -18 degrees Celsius. The purpose of seed banks is to protect the best seeds for important plants should there be a major catastrophe that destroys the ones in the wild.

Norway's Svalbard Global Seed Vault is located some where in the Arctic. There exists about 1,400 seed banks worldwide but they are all susceptible to economic stability and environment effects, among others.

This one vault will be the final backup should anything happen to all the other vaults. Owned by Norway, all the seeds submitted will belong to their respective countries.

Source: National Geographic News "Cooling Begins for "Doomsday" Seed Bank"