Seeds of nine Cherokee Nation heirloom crops are on their way to a remote island in Norway.
The Cherokee Nation was invited to send them for storage in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the world’s largest collection of crop diversity.
"The heirloom seeds are culturally significant, they always have been to the Cherokee Nation. And so, those are the seeds we identified as being most important historically to the Cherokee people, and those are the ones we ensured made it to the vault so they could be protected for generations," said Cherokee Nation Secretary of Natural Resources Chad Harsha.
Four varieties of corn, including Cherokee White Eagle, the tribe’s most sacred, will be in the seed vault, along with four varieties of beans and a type of squash. All predate European settlement.
They’re the same crops the Cherokee Nation started growing in a community garden and making available to citizens to grown on their own a few years ago.
"Part of the idea of maintaining this garden and presenting these seeds to Cherokee citizens is it gives them an opportunity to practice traditional crops as we always have, and it certainly allows citizens to have a better and stronger connection to the Cherokee Nation," Harsha said.
The Global Crop Diversity Trust plans to deposit the Cherokee Nation's seeds in the vault along with others it's receiving on Feb. 25.
"We processed the seeds like we normally would for distribution and preservation here at the Cherokee Nation, and then packed them with an industrial-strength system that made sure the integrity of the seeds would last for varying conditions over generations," Harsha said.
The tribe can get the seeds out of the vault if the crops would otherwise die out. Cherokee Nation officials said they're the first tribe in the U.S. to be invited to deposit seeds in the vault.
