"I don’t want to die with a freezer full of seeds." It’s time to rethink biodiversity and preservation | Chris Smith (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 6 days ago by wolfyvegan@slrpnk.net to c/biodiversity@mander.xyz

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Our desire to preserve is strongly linked to a narrative of loss, both for biodiversity writ large and for rare heirloom seeds. But we recognize the need for biodiversity and destroy it in the same breath. What if we protected the Amazon instead of just the genetics within it? What if we supported small-scale diversified agriculture instead of industrialized monoculture?

Seed preservation has a place, but it’s not the thing that will save us. Heirloom seed keepers attempt to preserve the past, while plant breeders control genetic resources to commodify the seed. Neither camp is particularly focused on how to expand biodiversity into the future, as if biodiversity and seed varieties are fixed and finite things.

Compounding this problem is the climate crisis, which is dramatically affecting our ability to grow food. Diversity is a core component of resilience, so we need rapid, ongoing and diverse adaptation of our regional food systems – everywhere, all the time. If we’ve been preserving all these seeds for some imagined future need, then the need is now. Arguably, it’s already too late.

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[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago

Isn't the point of the freezer to make sure the seeds are there after you die? The whole concept of preservation is to save something that will outlast you.

[-] wolfyvegan@slrpnk.net 6 points 6 days ago

I think that the point of the article is that keeping a large seed collection in storage is a risk; if the freezer fails, all of those seeds are lost forever. Even if the seeds are preserved indefinitely, after a few centuries of climate change, they may not be able to survive in the same region where they were collected, whereas by growing them out generation after generation, they are allowed to adapt to changing conditions and maintain a different sort of viability.

It would seem that keeping some seeds preserved in cold storage while also growing some of the same lineage in as many locations as possible would be the most effective means of keeping the genetics alive.

[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

That's fair, but isn't that what we're already doing? People are growing crops and trees, they are evolving naturally and also being modified and cultured to improve growth and adapt to changing environments.

[-] wolfyvegan@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 days ago

This article was (from what I understood) mostly referring to old heirloom crops that are no longer widely grown because they've been superseded by newer commercial cultivars. I remember hearing that in the early 1900s, there were something like 53 potato cultivars available to buy in grocery stores in the USA, but by the end of the century, there were only 4. That probably applies to other crops as well. Another example of capitalism reducing biodiversity, I guess.

[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

Yeah I suppose the nihilist in me is just assuming total societal collapse and I'm counting on dedicated preservationists to leave the universe evidence we were here.

this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025

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Biodiversity

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Biodiversity is a term used to describe the enormous variety of life on Earth. It can be used more specifically to refer to all of the species in one region or ecosystem. Biodiversity refers to every living thing, including plants, bacteria, animals, and humans. Scientists have estimated that there are around 8.7 million species of plants and animals in existence. However, only around 1.2 million species have been identified and described so far, most of which are insects. This means that millions of other organisms remain a complete mystery.

Over generations, all of the species that are currently alive today have evolved unique traits that make them distinct from other species. These differences are what scientists use to tell one species from another. Organisms that have evolved to be so different from one another that they can no longer reproduce with each other are considered different species. All organisms that can reproduce with each other fall into one species. Read more...

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