In 1838, 15,000 Cherokee were expelled by US military and militia from their homelands in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee, then forced west to Indian territory, present-day Oklahoma. “It’s important for the Cherokee nation to have this vital back-up.”

“Svalbard is the ultimate failsafe for biodiversity of crops,” said Stefan Schmitz, executive director of the Crop Trust, which manages the vault with the Norwegian government and the Nordic Genetic Resource Centre. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault outside Longyearbyen on Svalbard, Norway, has the capacity to hold 4.5m crop varieties. The climate crisis is still a threat: the vault has required multimillion-dollar upgrades to prevent flooding caused by extreme rainfall and melting of the permafrost.

About 500 seeds of each variety are stored at -18C in sealed foil packages. Svalbard includes unique varieties of African and Asian staples such as maize, rice, wheat and sorghum, as well as European and South American varieties of aubergine, lettuce, barley and potato. The vault is only accessible via a 120-metre tunnel. It is well above sea level and the permafrost and thick rock ensure seeds remain frozen even without power. The Svalbard vault, which has the capacity to hold 4.5m crop varieties, was created in conditions resilient to natural and manmade disasters, in order to safeguard duplicates of samples kept elsewhere. There are more than 1,700 food gene banks across the world but many are considered vulnerable to natural catastrophes, war, funding deficits, erratic electricity or poor management. Extreme weather events linked to the climate crisis are on the rise. Oklahoma is prone to tornadoes and has suffered two record droughts and multiple floods in the past decade. “The Cherokee nation is the only place on the planet where all these crops are grown, and these days tough weather patterns make the situation precarious,” Pat Gwin, the tribe’s senior director of environmental resources, told the Guardian from Oklahoma. The Cherokee seeds will be only the second deposit from an indigenous community to be stored in the Svalbard vault, following the deposit of 750 South American Andean potato seeds in 2015. The crops predate European settlement and are a core part of Cherokee identity. The seeds chosen are Cherokee white eagle corn – the tribe’s most sacred corn, used for cultural ceremonies – Cherokee long greasy beans, Cherokee Trail of Tears beans, Cherokee turkey gizzard black and brown beans, Cherokee candy roaster squash and three other varieties of corn. Photograph: Stephanie Remer/Cherokee Nation Communications Packets of Cherokee white eagle corn seeds.

Us doomsday vault