Worker checks on containers of seeds at the Millennium Seed Bank Project. Why the hood & jacket? Seeds are stored at -20ºC.
Credit: Millennium Seed Bank Project
Between 22 & 47% of the world's plant species are endangered [1].
Part of a solution is the Millennium Seed Bank at Kew Gardens. As of 14 March 2014, they had in total: 1,980,405,036 seeds in storage. While I'm inclined to doubt the level of accuracy claimed, they definitely have a lot of seeds. I'm a bit more comfortable with their claim that those almost 2 billion seeds, represent 34,088 wild plant species.
Target is 25% of wild species by 2020. That will be 75,000 individual species.
http://www.kew.org/science-conservation/millennium-seed-bank
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[1] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/global-estimate-of-endang/ / Millennium Seed Bank Partnership plant conservation programme program in the world focus global plant life threat of extinction plants conserve conservation conserved seed banks insurance risk extinction native habitat network of partners 80 countries banked 13% of the world's wild plant species 25% bankable seeds by 2020 75,000 species target plants regions risk increasing impact human activities land use climate change seed drying /
