The Svalbard Global Seed Vault provides a backup of seed collections from genebanks around the world. It’s unique character has made it iconic in the public imagination as a ‘Noah’s Ark’ for crop plants. Its remote location and strict controls on access have, however, also lent it an air of mystery, swirling with conspiracy theories. In this paper, I first clarify the aims of the Vault, the history of its development and the policies and practices of its current operation. Given (...) concerns around its potential links to the biotechnology industry, I go on to ask whether GM crops are currently stored in the Vault. Presenting several reasons for why GM crops are formally excluded, while indicating the potential for both change and unintentional contamination, I am compelled to question whether GM crops should be excluded. Answering this requires an interrogation of their potential conservation value as modern contributors to crop biodiversity. In exploring this issue, I suggest that there has been surprisingly little discussion of the moral status and conservation value of bio-technological crop plants and indeed, of how we care for all the techno-lifeforms we are currently engaged in co-creating. I suggest that these are becoming important issues as biotechnological techniques and applications begin to rapidly evolve and diversify. Emphasizing the scope for a refreshed interdisciplinary research agenda exploring the interface between biotechnology and biodiversity conservation, I conclude the article by proposing new concepts of synbiodiversity and symbiodiversity to encourage further debate. (shrink)

This paper discusses the genesis of human DNA patents and the legal confusion and ramifications that ensued. Beginning in the mid-1970s with policymakers and lawmakers in the United States, confronted with an economy impacted by an oil crisis, inflation, growing and persistent unemployment and the fledgling biotechnology industry, this paper tracks the development of the practice until its banning in the US Supreme Court in June 2013. The paper raises serious questions regarding the relevance of a patent system—a system that, (...) as the patenting of naturally occurring biological materials demonstrates, is so easily manipulated through the use of legal contrivances. The paper outlines that potential future manipulation poses as a significant threat to the national economy and security of the United States if history is allowed to repeat itself in the context of biological materials. (shrink)