According to this BBC report the Svalbard International Seed Vault, also entitled as “Noahs Ark” or “doomsday vault”, is scheduled to be formally opened on 26 February. According to the seed vaults website:
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which is currently being established in the permafrost in the mountains of Svalbard, is designed to store duplicates of seeds from seed collections from around the globe. Many of these collections from developing countries are in developing countries. If seeds are lost, e.g. as a result of natural disasters, war or simply a lack of resources, the seed collections may be reestablished using seeds from Svalbard.
Every good gardener knows that fragile plants need to be saveguarded from agressive exponentially growing weeds. (via beton und garten). And if things are out of balance people in Germany are confining them sometimes with what is called a Rasenkantenstein (see above image).
Due to the rapid climate change again mostly fragile plants are dying and thus biodiversity is on the decline, which made the Svalbard International Seed Vault necessary. Frankly speaking I think the vault is rather a grave, as I am not sure wether the seeds would survive under new circumstances.
And unfortunately I am rather pessimistic wether the above Berlin bud (top image which is of today!) is going to survive, looking at the very likely future frost.
Below some images of the shoots of a syringa heidge by G. Mein entitled: “Vor Hecken schützen”:
