Billionth Seed Collected

The Millennium Seed Bank has collected its billionth seed for safekeeping and conservation.

The billionth seed was presented to the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, on 26 April, ahead of an official banking ceremony at the Millennium Seed Bank on 22 May. 

The Millennium Seed Bank Project (MSBP) based in Wakehurst Place, West Sussex is regarded as one of the most ambitious conservation projects in the world. It holds the largest wild seed collection in the world (18,000) including 88% of the total UK flora. It works with over 100 partner organisations in 50 countries forming a global network, duplicating collections in partner seed banks to provide an effective insurance against the loss of species in their natural environments. 

The billionth seed is from an African bamboo, Oxytenanthera abyssinica,  collected by the Millennium Seed Bank Project partner institution in Mali, the Institut d’Economie Rurale. The species is a priority for conservation for a number of reasons: it is a very useful plant, its natural habitat is under increasing threat and it sets seed only once every seven years. 

Paul Smith, Head of the Millennium Seed Bank, said: ‘’Everyone in the world depends on nature and ecosystem services such as clean air and water to provide the conditions for a decent, healthy and secure life.   The need for the kind of insurance policy the Millennium Seed Bank provides has never been greater.” 

Despite its achievements and enormous potential for future conservation, the Millennium Seed Bank Project has no funding post 2010.

Given funding, the Millennium Seed Bank Project, working with its international partners, aims to collect and bank seeds from 25% of the world’s plant species by 2020.

If you donate to the Millennium Seed Bank, your donation will fund the following:

• £10 is the cost for 30 storage bottles to hold small collections for long-term storage in the Millennium Seed Bank
• £75 covers the processing work necessary from arrival through to storage of a single collection in the Millennium Seed Bank
• £2000 will secure a plant species in safe storage for the foreseeable future and will help contribute to the MSB's aim of banking a quarter of the world's wild plant species by 2020.

Learn more about the project and the importance of conservation:

• find out why we save seeds
• visit the Millennium Seed Bank
• find out who supports and funds the project