Time to Save Nature’s Masterpieces
Deep within a sandstone mountain on an Arctic island, an irreplaceable inheritance is preserved in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The Doomsday Vault securely stores more than 740,000 of the world’s estimated 1.5 million seed varieties, protecting each strain from both the wrath of nature and folly of man.
In this crystal cocoon, the seeds are safe from global warming, nuclear war and GMO corporations. In the outside world, monopolistic hazards are today the most immediate threat to plant diversity. Nature’s original designs face existential pressure from biotech companies whose ownership of patented seed varieties gives them tremendous control over which non-GMO seeds survive commercially.
Above ground, many conscientious individuals are spearheading efforts to keep unique seeds and their distinct genomes part of our world. One initiative working to reverse the tides of extinction is the Ark of Taste, a project of the global Slow Food Movement.
The Ark of Taste is on a mission to save endangered grains, fruits, vegetables, and more. Booking safe passage on the Slow Food Movement’s metaphorical ark may be the last best hope for such sublime tastes as North American antebellum peanuts, Harrison cider apples and Ojai pixie tangerines.
“The Ark is an international catalogue of foods that are threatened by industrial standardization, the regulations of large-scale distribution and environmental damage,” explains Slow Food.
To date, more than 800 products from over 50 countries have been added to the international Ark of Taste catalogue. In the U.S., Ark of Taste has profiled over 200 rare regional foods, and has become a popular tool that helps American farmers, ranchers, fishers, chefs, retail grocers, educators and consumers celebrate the continent’s extraordinary biological, cultural and culinary heritage.
The project is endorsed by Michael Pollan, author of such healthy food classics as The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, and Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation. In a review, he pointed out what makes this movement — and the plants it hopes to save — so special:
“Of course seed-saver groups have been around for a while now, preserving heirloom varieties from the onslaught of patented hybrids, but Slow Food takes that project a step further. The movement understands that every set of genes on its Ark of Taste encodes not only a set of biological traits but a set of cultural practices as well, and in some cases even a way of life.”
Nature has been warning us for a very long time that the tastes and colours of some nutritious fruits, vegetables and grains may not endure. One study projects that more than a quarter of all flowering plants may be gone within several decades, many before their delicate grace has ever been experienced, and remembered.
Will their unseen beauty someday exist only in a remote Arctic cave?
Saving nature’s masterpieces, saving colours and tastes that might never be enjoyed again, plus the practicality of guarding biodiversity for our own preservation — it’s a story we’ve seen before. It’s the kind of great moral challenge that calls people of vision to accomplish epic things. Perhaps even to build an ark.
