NM Chile Seeds Preserved for an Uncertain Future

Come what may in the way of climate change or other natural or human-caused disasters, Tsile chile seeds from a northern New Mexico pueblo are now safely preserved in a vault in the Arctic, delivered by a U.S. delegation that included New Mexico Senator Tom Udall. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault—also called the “doomsday” seed vault—is designed to store duplicates of seeds from collections around the globe, as backup in the event that an original collection is destroyed. The vault is owned by the Norwegian government, which financed the construction of it deep in a mountain on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, near the North Pole. The vault now contains more than 525,000 crop varieties, thought to be the most diverse collection in the world.

Read the press release from Global Crop Diversity Trust here.