Since 2007, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault has quietly stood as humanity’s insurance policy against agricultural disaster, housing around 1.3 million samples of plant seeds from across the globe. These seeds, representing crucial crops like rice, wheat, and potatoes, are stored in a remote Arctic vault designed to ensure their preservation in the face of potential global catastrophes.
However, the growing impacts of climate change are beginning to threaten even this last-resort stronghold. In late 2016, an alarming incident occurred when melting permafrost caused by rising global temperatures led to water seeping into the entrance tunnel of the vault. Fortunately, the water froze before reaching the seeds, narrowly avoiding disaster. This close call underscored the need for costly upgrades, with over ten million euros invested to bolster the vault against future climate-related threats.
Despite these efforts, some experts remain skeptical that the Earth will continue to offer safe havens for such vital genetic repositories as climate change accelerates. Increasingly frequent floods, storms, and wildfires could eventually overwhelm even the most secure locations.
In response to these growing concerns, a group of U.S. scientists has proposed a radical new solution: moving our planet’s biodiversity backup off-world. Their ambitious vision involves constructing a biocamp on the moon, dubbed the “Doomsday Bunker,” where not only plant seeds but also samples of animals and microbes could be stored.
Why the moon? According to Lynne Parenti, co-author of the study and a researcher at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, the moon’s remote location offers a unique advantage—it is entirely safe from Earth’s increasingly volatile climate. Perhaps even more crucially, the lunar biocamp would be designed to operate autonomously, requiring no human intervention or energy supply, making it a truly self-sustaining safeguard.
The scientists propose using cryopreservation techniques, such as freezing living cells in liquid nitrogen, to maintain the integrity of the samples. Initial tests have already been conducted on the cells of star gobies, a reef-dwelling fish species, with promising results.
However, cryopreservation at the required temperature of minus 196 degrees Celsius is not easily achievable on Earth. On the moon, however, specific areas near the poles, like crater regions, offer naturally cold environments along with protection from cosmic radiation—ideal conditions for long-term storage.
While the study doesn’t delve deeply into the financial and logistical challenges of creating such a lunar biocamp, the researchers are optimistic about its feasibility. Lead author Mary Hagedorn suggests that, with adequate funding and NASA’s support, the project could commence almost immediately.
As the climate crisis deepens, the concept of a lunar biocamp may shift from science fiction to a necessary reality, offering a backup plan for preserving Earth’s biodiversity in the face of an increasingly uncertain future.