(Adds Stoltenberg, Barroso quotes, details)By John AcherLONGYEARBYEN, Norway, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Norway launched a Noah's ark of the plant kingdom on Tuesday to protect crop seeds, among mankind's most valuable resources, from cataclysm inside an Arctic mountainside.Blasted out of icy rock 1,000 km (600 miles) from the North Pole, the air-locked vaults would stay frozen for 200 years even in the worst-case scenario of global warming and if mechanical refrigeration were to fail, officials said.Initially 100 million seeds from more than 100 countries have been sent for safekeeping at the $10 million facility which holds 268,000 seed samples, each from a different farm or field."Biological diversity is under threat from the forces of nature ... and from the actions of man," Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said at the opening ceremony."The seed vault is our insurance policy" against threats such as war, natural disasters or climate change, he said.Dubbed a doomsday vault, the cavern in the Svalbard archipelago off the northern tip of Norway is a backup storage for seeds from gene banks around the globe.The deposits range from major African and Asian staples such as rice, maize, wheat, cowpea and sorghum to European and South American varieties of eggplant, lettuce, barley and potato. Genetically modified varieties will not be included."We will have a major (seed) collection here, one of the biggest in the world, from the opening day," Cary Fowler, head of the Global Crop Diversity Trust which is funding the operations of the vault, told Reuters.Stoltenberg and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan environmentalist, put the first box of rice seed in the vault at an inauguration ceremony also attended by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.CLIMATE TREATY"We hope and work for the best but have to plan for the worst," Barroso said.He hoped international cooperation in setting up the vault could be matched by efforts to agree a new U.N. treaty to fight climate change at a meeting in Copenhagen due in late 2009."The conditions down here in the vault are perfect," Fowler said inside the gently sloping steel tube tunnel leading down to the three vault rooms that will be able to house 4.5 million samples, some 2 billion seeds."In the past, when accidents or natural disasters or war intervened and destroyed samples, then that was it -- they were as dead as a dinosaur, extinct," Fowler said."But we are going to put an end to extinction with this vault because we are going to have a safety backup, a Plan B."Seeds deposited in the vault remain the property of the depositors, which include the world's major gene banks in developing countries.During a visit to the site on Monday, whirring freezer equipment added an extra chill to the first vault room to be opened. The seeds will be kept at a storage temperature of minus 18-20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit).Barley can survive 2,000 years, wheat 1,700 and sorghum almost 20,000 years under such conditions, the Trust said.If the freezers failed, the permafrost would keep the cavern at around minus 4 Celsius, allowing time for repairs."I like having a Plan B to our Plan B," Fowler said. (Editing by Robert Woodward)
Artist's conception of the vault.
The entrance to the vault.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a vault containing millions of seeds from all over the world, saw its first deposits on Tuesday. Located 800 kilometers from the North Pole on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, the vault has been referred to by European Commission president José Manuel Barroso as a "frozen Garden of Eden". It is intended to preserve crop supplies and secure biological diversity in the event of a worldwide disaster.

"The opening of the seed vault marks a historic turning point in safeguarding the world’s crop diversity," said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust which is in charge of collecting the seed samples. The Norwegian government, who owns the bank, built it at a cost of $9.1 million. 

At the opening ceremony, 100 million seeds from 268,000 samples were placed inside the vault, where there is room for over 2 billion seeds. Each of the samples originated from a different farm or field, in order to best ensure biological diversity. These crop seeds included such staples as rice, potatoes, barley, lettuce, maize, sorghum, and wheat. No genetically modified crops were included. (Beyond politics they are generally sterile so of no use.)

Constructed deep inside a mountain and protected by concrete walls, the "doomsday vault" is designed to withstand earthquakes, nuclear warfare, and floods resulting from global warming. Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg called it an "insurance policy" against such threats.

With air-conditioned temperatures of -18 degrees Celsius, experts say the seeds could last for an entire millennium. Some crops will be able to last longer, like sorghum, which the Global Crop Diversity Trust says can last almost 20 millenniums. Even if the refrigeration system fails, the vaults are expected to stay frozen for 200 years.

The Prime Minister said, "With climate change and other forces threatening the diversity of life that sustains our planet, Norway is proud to be playing a central role in creating a facility capable of protecting what are not just seeds, but the fundamental building blocks of human civilization." Stoltenberg, along with Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai, made the first deposit of rice to the vault.

"It is very important for Africa to store seeds here because anything can happen to our national seed banks," Maathai said. The vault will operate as a bank, allowing countries to use their deposited seeds free of charge. It will also serve as a backup to the thousands of other seed banks around the world.

"Crop diversity will soon prove to be our most potent and indispensable resource for addressing climate change, water and energy supply constraints and for meeting the food needs of a growing population," Cary Fowler said.