If you’ve been reading the news lately, you may have found plenty of reasons to despair. The drumbeat of crisis can be paralyzing. But in the icy stillness of Svalbard, I found something different: resilience, tangible and enduring, encased in a permafrost vault on a remote Arctic island.
On 25 February, I took part in something truly special. In the heart of the remote Svalbard archipelago, surrounded by sweeping white mountains and dark sea, I participated in the first seed deposit of 2025 at the world’s largest backup facility for crop diversity. I carried a small but invaluable cargo: a box with seeds from the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF)’s genebank.
The experience filled me with immense hope.
Scientists, researchers and experts from Thailand, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Germany, Georgia, and beyond gathered, each bearing their precious seeds, sealed in boxes, to the vault. Despite the distances we had all travelled and our different lives, we shared one unshakable bond: a commitment to a better future. A commitment to safeguard the genetic diversity that sustains our world. A commitment to cross-border collaboration, a healthy planet and thriving communities.
As we each took our turn bringing our precious seed boxes into the vault, I felt the weight of that responsibility—and the immense privilege of being part of something bigger than myself.
On February 25, 2025, Éliane Ubalijoro deposited an additional 120,000 seeds from 19 native African tree species—including the iconic baobab— in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Photo by Michael Major / Crop Trust
Exactly 17 years earlier, my hero Wangari Maathai stood on the same land to celebrate the vault’s opening. On that historic day filled with wild happiness and hope, she remarked that “along with international movements to save endangered species and the rainforests of the world, it is just as important for us to conserve the diversity of the world’s crops for future generations.” Today, her words feel more urgent than ever.
It may seem like a given now, but the existence of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault was never guaranteed. It took the dedication and expertise of visionary scientists, along with the support and generosity from the Norwegian government, to bring it into being. Without their resolve, we would not have this global resource for our future food and nutrition security.
Since 2008, CIFOR-ICRAF has been at the forefront of safeguarding biodiversity, securing over 1 million seeds from 177 species in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Photo by Michael Major / Crop Trust
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a symbol of global cooperation. Inside the vault, there are no borders or conflicts. Seeds from South Korea, for example, sit beside those from North Korea. The vault is a silent testimony to what is possible when we rise above. This tight-knit community of depositors exemplifies what can be achieved when nations, institutions and scientists work together to save the world’s most important seeds for future generations.
And most crucially, the seed vault is a testament to what we can achieve when we take a step back and think about our collective humanity, when we are brave enough to advocate for what we know is right, when we harness existing solutions for change and when we challenge ourselves to think outside of the box.
With our latest contribution, our genebank reached a milestone of depositing more than 1.1 million seeds from 177 species from around the world in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The diversity of tree species in the CIFOR-ICRAF genebank, now safeguarded in Svalbard, reflects the global reliance among nations on conserving plant genetic resources. Each deposit is a step towards securing the genetic diversity essential for resilient and nutritious food systems worldwide.
Genebanks, like ours, are the quiet sentinels of food security, conserving seeds vital to sustain and provide nutritious food to a growing global population. They conserve the world’s seed diversity and ensure that farmers and scientists alike have access to the genetic diversity needed to adapt to a changing world, to make our food systems on our planet as resilient as possible.
A particular focus of CIFOR-ICRAF’s collection is tree seeds from species native to Africa, which are most suited to support Africa’s ecosystem restoration aspirations and other goals such as biodiversity conservation and climate change adaptation. By providing top-quality seeds for the right species in the right environment, we can help strengthen ecosystems for food security, biodiversity, livelihoods and carbon sequestration. Investing in native tree seed systems preserves our heritage, protects biodiversity and can help secure a sustainable future for generations to come.
If you’re reading this, I encourage you to consider: What role will you play? What can you do to make our Earth a greener, more peaceful place? What seeds—literal or metaphorical—can you plant today for a better tomorrow? Dare to dream audaciously, as the founders of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault did, and don’t be discouraged that big dreams often start by taking small first steps.
As Maathai once said, “It’s the little things citizens do. That’s what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees.”
Acknowledgements
*Éliane Ubalijoro is chief executive officer of the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF).
**The Svalbard Global Seed Vault was established by the Government of Norway in 2008. The overall responsibility for the vault rests with the government, under the Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food. Daily operations are overseen by the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen) under an agreement between the Ministry, NordGen and the Global Crop Diversity Trust (also known as the Crop Trust), which provides part of the funding for the vault’s management.
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