Hope in the vaults at the ‘world’s richest bank’

Beneath the English countryside in the heart of Sussex lies an incredible bank – but the type that may come to mind as you read this is not the one we mean. In sub-zero chambers, in flood-, bomb-, and radiation-proof vaults, 2.4 billion seeds, collected from around the world, are stored. This is the Millennium Seed Bank, an insurance policy against the global biodiversity crisis that is threatening plant species with extinction.