1．LONGYEARBYEN, Norway — With plant species disappearing at an alarming rate, scientists and governments are creating a global network of plant banks to store seeds and sprouts, precious genetic resources that may be needed for man to adapt the world’s food supply to climate change. 我要年薪百万
挪威朗伊尔城——随着植物物种正在以骇人听闻的速度灭绝，科学家和各国政府正在创建全球网络性的植物库来储存种子和苗芽。人类可以利用这些珍贵的种芽资源确保充足的食物供应，以应对气候变化。
2．This week, the flagship of that effort, the Global Seed Vault near here, received its first seeds, millions of them. Bored into the middle of a frozen Arctic mountain topped with snow, the vault’s goal is to store and protect samples of every type of seed from every seed collection in the world.
本周，作为这种不懈努力的旗舰机构，“全球种子地库”接收了首批数百万种的种子。该地库建于北极的一座白雪皑皑的大山之中，其目标是储存和保护世界各地收藏的各类种子样本。
3．As of Thursday, thousands of neatly stacked and labeled gray boxes of seeds — peas from Nigeria, corn from Mexico — reside in this glazed cavelike structure, forming a sort of backup hard drive, in case natural disasters or human errors erase the seeds from the outside world.
截至周四，成千上万个堆放整齐且贴有标签的灰色种盒在上釉的洞穴式结构中安家落户，如尼日利亚的豌豆、墨西哥的玉米。这些盒子就如已经备份了的电脑硬盘，以防世界上的植物物种会因自然灾害和人为破坏而消失。
4．Descending almost 500 feet under the permafrost, the entrance tunnel to the seed vault is designed to withstand bomb blasts and earthquakes. An automated digital monitoring system controls temperature and provides security akin to a missile silo or Fort Knox. No one person has all the codes for entrance.
通往种子地库的入口隧道，位于永冻带下约500英尺处，其设计旨在防御爆炸和地震。自动化数字监控系统用于控制温度并提供类似导弹发射井或福特诺克斯军事基地的安全保障。任何人都不单独拥有进入种子库的全部密码。
5．The Global Vault is part of a broader effort to gather and systematize information about plants and their genes, which climate change experts say may indeed prove more valuable than gold. In Leuven, Belgium, scientists are scouring the world for banana samples and preserving their shoots in liquid nitrogen before they become extinct. A similar effort is under way in France on coffee plants. A number of plants, most from the tropics, do not produce seeds that can be stored.
目前，世界上很多人士致力于收集种子及其种子基因的信息并使之系统化，全球种子地库是这种全球性
努力的的一个缩影。气候变化专家称，这些信息要比金子还要贵重。在比利时的鲁汶，科学家正在搜集世界上的香蕉样本并将香蕉芽保存在液体氮中，以防其灭绝。法国也正在进行类似的努力，保护咖啡物种。很多植物，大多数是来自热带地区的植物，无法通过种子繁殖，不能产生可供储存的种子。
6．For years, a hodgepodge network of seed banks has been amassing seed and shoot collections in a haphazard manner. Labs in Mexico banked corn species. Those in Nigeria banked cassava. Now these scattershot efforts are being urgently consolidated and systematized, in part because of better technology to preserve plant genes and in part because of the rising alarm about climate change and its impact on world food production.
多年来，很多庞杂的种子库网络一直以随意的方式收集种子和苗芽。例如，墨西哥的实验室收藏玉米种，尼日利亚的实验室收藏木薯种。现在，正对这些分散的努力进行亟需的整合和系统化操作。之所以可以这样做，部分原因是储存植物基因技术的更新，部分原因是气候变化的警钟继续长鸣及其对世界粮食产量的影响。
7．“We started thinking about this post-9/11 and on the heels of Hurricane Katrina,” said Cary Fowler, president of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, a nonprofit group that runs the vault. “Everyone was saying, why didn’t anyone prepare for a hurricane before? We knew it was going to happen.
卡里·福勒是一家负责管理种子库的非营利性组织全球作物多样性托管会的总裁，他说：“我们是在‘9·11’事件之后、尤其是卡特里娜飓风之后，开始有这个构想的。” 他还说：“每个人都在问：为什么事先不作好迎接飓风的准备呢？我们明明知道会发生飓风的。”
8．“Well, we are losing biodiversity every day — it’s a kind of drip, drip, drip. It’s also inevitable. We need to do something about it.”
他指出：“喏，我们每天都在损失生物多样性——一点一滴地在损失。这种损失没有止步的迹象，我们必须为此做点什么。”
9．This week the urgency of the problem was underscored as wheat prices rose to record highs and wheat stores dropped to the lowest level in 35 years. A series of droughts and new diseases cut wheat production in many parts of the world. “The erosion of plants’ genetic resources is really going fast,” said Dr. Rony Swennen, head of the division of crop biotechnology at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, who has preserved half of the world’s 1,200 banana types. “We’re at a critical moment and if we don’t act fast, we’re going to lose a lot of plants that we may need.”
本周，由于小麦价格上升到最高纪录水平和小麦储存量下滑到35年来最低水平，更加突出了
这个问题的紧迫性。由于一连串的干旱及新的疾病，世界很多地方的小麦产量下降。罗尼·斯文奈恩博士现任比利时鲁汶天主教大学作物生物技术部主任，他保存了世界上1200种香蕉种的一半以上。斯文奈恩博士说：“植物基因资源正在受到快速侵蚀。”他还指出：“我们正处于关键时刻，如果不迅速采取行动，我们将失去很多我们需要的植物物种。”
10．The United Nations International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources, ratified in 2004, created a formal global network for banking and sharing seeds, as well as for studying their genetic traits. Last year, its database received thousands of new seeds.
已于2004年获得批准的联合国国际植物基因资源条约创建了一个正式的全球网络，旨在对种子进行储存和共享并对其遗传特征进行研究。去年，有成千上万的新种子在其数据库安家落户。
11．A system of plant banks could be crucial in responding to climate crises since it could identify genetic material and plant strains better able to cope with a changed environment.
由于植物库系统能够识别出那些对环境变化适应能力较强的基因物质和植物种类，因而这种系统能在应对气候危机中发挥至关重要的作用。
12．Here at the Global Vault, hundreds of gray boxes containing seeds from places ranging from Syria to Mexico were moved this week into a freezing vault to be placed in suspended animation. They harbor a vast range of qualities, like the ability to withstand drier, warmer climate.
本周，数以百计的装有种子的灰色盒子从叙利亚、墨西哥等地运至全球种子地库，藏于这个冷冻库之中。储存在这里的种子具有很多特性，如能够抵御较为干燥和较为温暖的气候
13．Climate change is expected to bring new weather stresses, as well as new plant pests into agricultural regions. Heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions will produce not just global warming but an increase in extreme weather events, like floods and droughts, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded.
政府间气候变化专门委员会得出结论：气候变化可能会加剧恶劣天气，并给农业地区带来新的植物害虫。导致温室效应的二氧化碳的排放不仅会导致全球气候变暖，而且会增加水灾和干旱等极端天气状况。
14．Already three-quarters of biodiversity in crops has been lost in the last century, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Eighty percent of maize types that existed in the 1930s are gone, for example. In the United States, 94 percent of peas are no longer grown.
据联合国粮农组织统计，四分之三的农作物领域的生物多样性在上个世纪已经消失。例说，存在于二十世纪三十年代的各种玉米种，现在80％已经灭
绝了。在美国，94％的豌豆已不复存在。
15．Seed banks have operated for decades, but many are based in agricultural areas and few are as high-tech or secure as the Global Seed Vault. They have often been regarded as resources for hobbyists, scientists, farmers and others rather than as a tool for human survival.
种子库已运营数十年，但很多都建在农业区，而且很少有种子库具有像全球种子地库这样的高科技设施和安全保障。这些种子库通常一直被视作植物爱好者、科学家、农民和其他人的资源，而不是被视作一种可以确保人类幸存的工具。
16．Their importance and vulnerability have become apparent in recent years. Seed banks in Afghanistan and Iraq were destroyed during conflicts in those nations, by looters who were after the plastic containers that held the seeds. In the Philippines, a typhoon bore through the wall of a seed bank, destroying numerous samples.
近年来，这些种子库的重要性和脆弱性日益显现。阿富汗和伊拉克的种子库在各自国内发生冲突期间均遭到摧毁，装有种子的塑料容器遭到洗劫。在菲律宾，台风刮倒了一家种子库的墙壁，同时也摧毁了无以计数的种子样本。
17．In reviewing seed bank policies a few years ago, experts looked at the banks in a new light, Dr. Fowler said: “We said, we may have some of the best seed banks in the world, but look at where they are: Peru, Colombia, Syria, India, Ethiopia, the Philippines. So a lot of us were asking, what’s plan B?”
在回顾数年前的种子库政策时，专家们开始用新的眼光看待种子库。福勒博士说：“我们说过，我们可能有一些世界上最好的种子库，但它们都在秘鲁、叙利亚、印度、埃塞阿比亚和菲律宾。因此，有许多人早就在问：我们的B计划是什么？”
18．The goal of the new global plant banking system is to protect the precious stored plant genes from the vagaries of climate, politics and human error. Many banks are now “in countries where the political situation is not stable, and it is difficult to rely on refrigeration,” Dr. Swennen said. Seeds must be stored at minus 20 degrees Celsius, that is, well below freezing, and plants that rely on cryopreservation must be far colder.
这个新的全球植物库系统的目标是保护储藏起来的珍贵植物基因免遭气候变化、政治动荡和人为过错的损害。斯文奈恩博士指出，很多种子库设在“一些政治局势动荡、冷藏条件得不到保障的国家”。种子必须储存在零下20摄氏度，而依赖于低温储藏的植物必须储存在更冷的条件下。
19．“We are inside a mountain in the Arctic because we wanted a really, really safe place that operates by itself,” Dr. Fowler said. Underground near Longyearbyen, just 600 miles from the North Pole, the seeds will st
ay frozen despite power failures. The Global Crop Diversity trust is also financing research into methods for storing genetic material from plants like bananas and coconuts that cannot be stored as seed.
福勒博士说：“种子库位于北极山脉之下，因为我们需要一个真正安全的、具备绝对储存条件的地方。”种子储存在距离北极仅仅600英里的朗伊尔城，即使在停电的情况下，种子也处于冷藏状态之下。像香蕉和椰子等植物无法通过储存种子来保留物种。全球作物多样性托管会还负责为这类植物的基因物质储藏方法的研究筹集资金。
20．The vault was built by Norway, and its operations are financed by government and private donations, including $20 million from Britain, $12 million from Australia, $11 million from Germany and $6.5 million from the United States. The effort to preserve a wide variety of plant genes in banks is particularly urgent because many farms now grow just one or two crops, with very high efficiency. Like purebred dogs perfectly tailored to their task, they are particularly vulnerable to both pests and climate change.
种子地库由挪威建造，其日常运作经费来自政府和私人捐款，其中包括来自英国的2000万美元、澳大利亚的1200万美元、德国的1100万美元以及来自美国的650万美元。因为现在许多农场仅种植一两种高产量作物，所以保存一个物种丰富的植物基因库的努力显得尤为迫切，像经驯化后执行特定任务的纯种犬一样，这些作物在虫害和气候变化面前特别脆弱，极易受损。
21．Scientists are also working to learn more about the skills encoded in the genes of each banked seed — crucial knowledge that is often not recorded. Ultimately, plant breeders will be able to consult a global database to find seeds with genes suitable for the particular climate challenge confronting a region — for instance, a corn with a stalk that resists storm winds or a wheat that needs less frequent water.
科学家们也正在努力了解更多关于为基因库各类种子编码的技能——这些技能是没有相关记载、至关重要的知识。最终，植物培育者将能通过访问全球数据库找到可适应某一地区特殊气候挑战的基因种子，如秸秆能够抵抗暴风雨的玉米或是消耗水份较少的小麦。
22．Just at a time when it is important to preserve biodiversity, economics encourages farmers to drop crops. But those seeds may contain traits that will prove advantageous in another place or another time. Scientists at Cornell University recently borrowed a gene from a South American potato to make potatoes that resisted the late blight fungus, a devastating disease that caused the Irish potato famine.
当前，保存生物多样性十分重要，经济学却鼓励农民放弃一些农作物的种植。但是这些作物的种子所具
有的潜在特性，会在其他地方、其他时间显出优势。最近，康奈尔大学的科学家从南美洲马铃薯中提取了一种基因，改良成一种能抵御晚疫病菌的马铃薯。正是这种毁灭性疾病导致了爱尔兰的马铃薯饥荒。
23．“You need a system to conserve the variety so it doesn’t go extinct,” Dr. Fowler said. “A farmer may make a bowl of porridge with the last seeds of a strain that is of no use to him, and then it’s gone. And potentially those are exactly the genes we will need a decade later.”
福勒博士说：“我们需要一种系统来保护物种的多样性，使其免遭灭绝。例如，一个农民用对他来说毫无用处的某种物种的最后几粒种子做成了一碗粥，随后该物种在世界上就不复存在了。但很可能这些种子恰恰含有我们十年之后所需要的基因。