"Doomsday" seed bank in Norway gets 13 mln USD to preserve world legacy better

Lise Lykke Steffensen, director of the Nordic Genetic Resource Center, gestures at Svalbard Global Seed Vault on Norway's remote Arctic archipelago of Svalbard on Feb. 27, 2018. The underground agricultural seed bank in Norway will receive a 13-million-U.S.-dollar grant for upgrade as it celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, the Norwegian government has said. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, dubbed the "Doomsday" and the "Noah's Ark" vault, was established as a backup of crop seed samples stored in other seed banks around the world. It is considered to be a vital international facility to safeguard global food supply amid growing threats of both natural and man-made disasters. (Xinhua/Liang Youchang)