Amid the scorching/freezing desert of Atacama in Chile, one of South America’s largest botanical storehouses aims to protect both the wild and cultivated heritage of the country’s plant life.
Called the Initihuasi Seed Bank, this genetic mothership is the central node in a nationwide network of institutions that are safeguarding the country’s plant diversity, come what may.
Built into the sides of a rocky outcrop, the facility stays cool under the ground of the driest desert on Earth. Inside, a walk-in freezer keeps aluminum foil seed packets at -4°F. The countless packets contain seeds from all families of plants that grow in the country.
Initihuasi’s seed vault sits beyond thick, earthquake-proof concrete walls. Among its shelves are rare and almost extinct species of flower cactus, and varieties of the country’s wine grapes and other agricultural exports.
“We have a very important mission, because we are contributing to the conservation of our biodiversity,” Ana Sandoval, a researcher who has worked at the center for more than a decade, told John Bartlett at NPR.
Inithuasi works in tandem with several other seed banks and scientific institutions around the country to ensure there are stores of all 4,655 of Chile’s plant species, 46% of which are endemic to the country. Field expeditions continually scour the landscape to expand the seed bank’s reserves, while several on-site greenhouses and grow facilities allow researchers to document the best-practices for propagating and growing some of the rarer species.
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It additionally supports a continental network of South American seed banks to ensure that the most biodiverse part of the world can remain so even if the climate changes dramatically, or the majestic landscapes between the Atacama, the Andes, and the Amazon fragment away.
Seed vaults are now a common discovery the world over, with major facilities located at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew location in Wakehurst, the UK, and the famous Global Seed Vault on the Norwegian island of Svalbard above the Arctic Circle.
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