The largest seed bank in the world invests in the future of the planet

From the coco de mer, the largest seed in the world weighing up to 20 kilos, to the tiny orchid, Kew Botanic Gardens preserves more than 2.4 billion seeds crucial for the health of the planet in a fort in the south of England. .

Founded in 2000 on the Wakehurst estate in Haywards Heath, the Millennium Seed Bank (MSB) is the world’s largest plant conservation programme, with 95,576 collections from 190 countries and 40,020 species, many of them from Latin America.

This treasure of the biosphere is stored in an impressive underground bunker proof of natural disasters and radiation, which contains drying, processing and refrigeration chambers as well as laboratories where scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew, displaced from their headquarters in London, work.

A valuable archive of plant life

“All life depends on plants, and currently two out of five are in danger of extinction, mostly due to human causes. There is a real need and a moral obligation to do everything possible to protect them”declares the bank’s head of research, Elinor Breman.

This March, a group of foreign journalists was able to access this construction created to last at least 500 years, where valuable seeds from around the world and their duplicates are kept in labeled jars.

The process to deposit each of these seeds begins with collection, which is handled by Kew experts or teams they collaborate with in multiple countries, including Mexico, Colombia or Peru.

Based on three main criteria – that they are in danger of extinction, that they are endemic and that they have economic utility – the species from which the seeds will be harvested are chosen, which are then sent to Wakehurst to be processed and safeguarded.

These wild specimens, whose conservation method is similar to that used in the agricultural sector for crops, can later be used to repopulate forests or reintroduce extinct species. In addition, their DNA is analyzed to see if it could be used to generate varieties resistant to climate change.

The wealth of Latin America

The MSB has projects underway in Mexico, where it works on a local variety of avocado; the Dominican Republic – whose flora is currently in danger due to the conflict in neighboring Haiti – and Peru, Michael Way, coordinator for the Americas, tells EFE.

There are also teams in Chile, where species from the Flowering Desert are conserved, and Colombia, with special attention to tropical forests.

Areas of interest are chosen either because Kew identifies threatened categories or because conservationists from other countries come forward with their own proposals, often mediated by the British Foreign Office.

Way explains that in Latin America it is important to collect wild variants of vegetables or fruits that are eaten – such as banana, tomato, potato, rice or wheat – whose genetic material could be useful for future crossings.

“Also important are the species used by some communities at a local level, which, although they will never be commercialized globally, are key for them.“, the specialist tells EFE, citing as an example the fonio that is consumed in parts of Africa and the Dominican Republic.

Way recognizes that one of the main challenges for conservation work is climate change.

“It affects all aspects of our project planning”, he relates.

“It affects the rate of fires in forests and grasslands; It is a threat to some of the endangered species; modifies seed harvest times and requires that, when replanting, we must predict climate imbalances”, he lists.

In any case, he is confident that the Millennium Seed Bank will be “both an insurance policy and an investment in the future of the planet”.