Service in Other Places
You might be surprised to read that a polar bear is working in Iraq. The Middle East, however, is not the only region where polar bears are on duty. We're also working with Norway to help guard a special seed depository:
Arctic vault is designed to save world's seeds
By Bill Lambrecht
In a plan to protect food crops of the future, polar bears will help guard a "doomsday vault" in the land of the midnight sun.
Scientists and Nordic political leaders planned to gather today at a remote setting near the North Pole to lay the cornerstone for what will be known as the Svalbard Arctic Seed Depository, which they hope can provide the world with a fail-safe method to protect seeds from disaster.
On an island 600 miles north of the Norwegian mainland, architects of the gene bank will carve a reinforced concrete vault into permafrost and rock to store some 3 million varieties of seeds from the United States and around the world. Botanists say that packed in watertight foil packages, some seeds can remain viable for thousands of years.
If an impenetrable vault and foreboding, wind-swept landscape inaccessible much of the time weren't defense enough, planners are issuing warnings about polar bears on the prowl to discourage anyone of a mind to steal or sabotage biological treasures.
Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, described the surroundings while en route to the ceremony. His Rome-based organization, established by the United Nations and supported by governments from around the world, has helped to engineer the project.
"It's the farthest north in the world you can fly," he said. "It's a pretty exotic-looking place; no trees or shrubs. There are, in fact, polar bears and a sign that reads, 'Take Polar Bear Danger Seriously.' I'm hoping that I don't meet one of them."
Of course providing security in the Arctic is nothing new for us and it would be a MUCH nicer place for me to be right now than Iraq, but I must go where duty calls!
