LONGYEARBYEN , Norway ( CNN ) -- A vast underground vault storing millions of seeds from around the world took delivery of its first shipment Tuesday . The inside of one of the vaults at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault , on a remote island near the Arctic Ocean . Dubbed the `` Doomsday Vault , '' the seed bank on a remote island near the Arctic Ocean is considered the ultimate safety net for the world 's seed collections , protecting them from a wide range of threats including war , natural disasters , lack of funding or simply poor agricultural management . Norwegian musicians performed Tuesday as part of an elaborate opening ceremony marking the opening of the vault , located 130 meters ( 427 feet ) inside a frozen mountain . Wangari Maathai , a Kenyan environmental and political activist who won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize , placed the first seeds inside the vault , followed by other dignitaries . The inaugural shipment represent 268,000 distinct samples of seeds , with each sample containing a hundred-plus seeds and originating from a different farm or field around the world . In all , the shipment of seeds secured in the vault Tuesday weighed approximately 10 tons , filling 676 boxes . The shipment amounts to a 100 million seeds in total , ranging from major African and Asian food staples like maize , rice , and wheat to European and South American varieties of eggplant , lettuce , barley , and potato , according to the Global Crop Diversity Trust , which is paying to collect and maintain the seeds . Watch as `` Doomsday '' seed vault opens » Eventually the Svalbard Global Seed Vault , as it is officially known , will hold as many as 4.5 million distinct samples of seeds -- or some 2 billion seeds in total -- encompassing almost every variety of most important food crops in the world , the Global Crop Diversity Trust said . The Norwegian government paid to build the vault in a mountainside near Longyearbyen , in the remote Svalbard islands between Norway and the North Pole . Building began last year . The United Nations founded the trust in 2004 to support the long-term conservation of crop diversity , and countries and foundations provide the funding . `` The seed vault is the perfect place for keeping seeds safe for centuries , '' said Cary Fowler , executive director of the trust . `` At these temperatures , seeds for important crops like wheat , barley and peas can last for up to 10,000 years . '' The vault 's location deep inside a mountain in the frozen north ensures the seeds can be stored safely no matter what happens outside . `` We believe the design of the facility will ensure that the seeds will stay well-preserved even if such forces as global warming raise temperatures outside the facility , '' said Magnus Bredeli Tveiten , project manager for the Norwegian government . The vault sits at the end of a 120-meter ( 131-yard ) tunnel blasted inside the mountain . Workers used a refrigeration system to bring the vault to -18 degrees Celsius ( just below 0 degrees Fahrenheit ) , and a smaller refrigeration system plus the area 's natural permafrost and the mountain 's thick rock will keep the vault at at least -4 C ( 25 F ) . The vault at Svalbard is similar to an existing seed bank in Sussex , England , about an hour outside London . The British vault , called the Millennium Seed Bank , is part of an scientific project that works with wild plants , as opposed to the seeds of crops . Paul Smith , the leader of the Millennium Seed Bank project , said preserving the seeds of wild plants is just as important as preserving the seeds of vital crops . `` We must give ourselves every option in the future to use the whole array of plant diversity that is available to us , '' Smith told CNN . The idea for the Arctic seed bank dates to the 1980s but only became a possibility after the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources came into force in 2004 , the Norwegian government said . The treaty provided an international framework for conserving and accessing crop diversity . Svalbard is designed to store duplicates of seeds from seed collections around the world . The Norwegian government says it has paid 50 million Norwegian Kroner ( $ 9.4 million ) to build the seed vault . E-mail to a friend . CNN 's Becky Anderson contributed to this report .
Ultimate safety net for the world 's seed collections has opened in Norway . The vault received inaugural shipments of 100 million seeds . Score: 7 built vault in glacial mountain between Norway and North Pole .