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The Millennium Seed Bank

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If All Life Depends On Plants, Maybe We Should Save Them?

When His Royal Highness Prince Charles officially opened the Millennium Seed Bank in 2000, he described it as “a gold reserve … a place where this reserve currency, in this case life itself, is stored.”

The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership is the largest plant conservation project in the world. Their purpose is to provide an "insurance policy" against the extinction of plants in the wild by storing seeds for future use.

Thanks to this project 24,000 plant species are safe.

Working with a network of partners across 50 countries, so far they have successfully banked 10% of the world's wild plant species. Their goal is to save 25% by 2020. They target plants and regions most at risk from climate change and the ever-increasing impact of human activities.

The Wellcome Trust Millennium building is in Sussex, Southern England. It is a nuclear proof facility where the seeds are carefully dried and stored at low temperatures with low humidity.

The average cost per species is $2,800.

Since all life depends on plants- that includes everything from food, medicine, construction, clothing, regulating climate, preventing flooding, and making paper products ranging from toilet paper to.. well, every single book, magazine, newspaper and printed document in the world -- it makes sense to invest in their future!

-Bibi Farber

This video was produced by Ted Talks