Protruding out of the permafrost at the base of a mountain in Norway's Svalbard archipelago, the entrance to the world’s “doomsday” seed vault is so incongruous and futuristic that it wouldn't look out of place in a James Bond movie.
Surrounded by snow, ice and the occasional passing polar bear, the remarkable facility houses 1.2m seed samples from every corner of the globe as an insurance policy against catastrophe. It is a monument to 12,000 years of human agriculture that is designed to prevent the permanent loss of crop species after war, natural disaster or pandemic.
The Global Seed Vault in the Norwegian Arctic, which opened in 2008, is closed to the public and shrouded in mystery, the subject of numerous internet doomsday conspiracy theories. Now, to celebrate the vault’s 15th anniversary, everyone is invited on a virtual tour to see inside the vast collection of tubers, rice, grains and other seeds buried deep in the mountain behind five sets of metal doors.
The deep-freeze, designed to last for ever, is co-managed by the Norwegian government, the Crop Trust and NordGen, the genebank of the Nordic countries.