The Global Arctic Seed Bank
On June 19. 2006, the Prime Ministers of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland participated in a ceremonial "laying of the first stone" of The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, near the town of Longyearbyen on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. The purpose of the project is to preserve a wide variety of plant seeds and gene material in an underground cavern in the case of a large-scale regional or global crises.
The Enterance

The construction of the seed vault was funded by the Norwegian Government. Storage of seeds in the vault is free-of-charge. Operational costs are paid by Norway and the Global Crop Diversity Trust. The primary funding for the Trust comes from organisations, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and various governments worldwide.

The Nordic Gene Bank first started storing a backup of Nordic plant germplasm as frozen seeds in an abandoned coal mine at Svalbard in 1984. Approximately 1.5 million distinct seed samples of agricultural crops are thought to exist. Refrigeration units cool the seeds to the internationally recommended standard ?18 ?C., and temperature that could preserve seeds from most major food crops for hundreds of years. Some seeds, including those of important grains, could survive longer, possibly thousands of years.
The Seed Vault

Since the New Svalbard Global Seed Vault officially opened on February 26. 2008 almost 750.000 seeds worldwide have been collected. The last deliveries have come from Peru, Costa Rica, Portugal, Colombia and Azerbaijan.

The First Spade
I am including a chart for Noon, June 19. 2006, the day of the first spade.
The chart has the Moon in Aries, with the Moon's North Node in the degree of the Vernal Equinox. The Moon is coming off her trine to Saturn and applying to her dispositor Mars in Leo. The Sun is in Gemini and opposite Pluto. Venus is 25 Taurus and in conjunction with the fixed star Algol. Prehaps this is a positive meaning of putting important seeds and gene material on ice.

Official Opening
I have put the Sun on the Midheaven in the chart for the day of the official opening. Notice how Mars is transiting the placement of the Sun in the chart of the First Spade. Also the Moon is transiting the position of Jupiter from the initiating chart.

The Wikipedia article is interesting reading, and after finding an article in VG, this was my main reference and source of information. It's good reading!

Links: Wikipedia, BBC News, VG