All human life, all life, depends on plants. Let me try to convince you of that in a few seconds. Just think for a moment. It doesn't matter whether you live in a small African village, or you live in a big city, everything comes back to plants in the end: whether it's for the food, the medicine, the fuel, the construction, the clothing, all the obvious things; or whether it's for the spiritual and recreational things that matter to us so much; or whether it's soil formation, or the effect on the atmosphere, or primary production. Damn it, even the books here are made out of plants. All these things, they come back to plants. And without them we wouldn't be here.
所有人类生命, 所有生命,皆赖于植物。 让我试着在几秒钟内说服你们相信它。 试想一下。 不管你是住在非洲的一个小村庄, 还是住在一个大城市里, 最终一切都会追溯到植物。 不管是食物、药物、 燃料、建筑、衣服,所有显而易见的东西, 或精神上的或娱乐上的, 这些对我们来说是非常重要的东西, 又或者是土壤的形成, 或者对大气的影响, 或者初级生产。 该死的,甚至连这里的书本都是用植物造的。 所有的这些东西,可以追溯到植物。 要是没有植物的话我们就不可能在这里。
Now plants are under threat. They're under threat because of changing climate. And they are also under threat because they are sharing a planet with people like us. And people like us want to do things that destroy plants, and their habitats. And whether that's because of food production, or because of the introduction of alien plants into places that they really oughtn't be, or because of habitats being used for other purposes -- all these things are meaning that plants have to adapt, or die, or move. And plants sometimes find it rather difficult to move because there might be cities and other things in the way.
现在植物正受到威胁。 它们由于气候的改变而受到威胁。 它们还因为跟像我们一样的人类生存在同一个星球, 而受到威胁。 我们这些人所做的却是在摧毁植物, 甚至侵占它们的栖息地。 不管是由于食物生产的原因 还是由于引进外来植物品种 到它们本不该存在的地方, 或者是由于栖息地被占为它用, 所有的这些东西会导致植物要么适应, 要么死去或者转移。 但是植物在多数情况下很难转移 因为会有城市和其他的一些东西挡住去路。
So if all human life depends on plants, doesn't it make sense that perhaps we should try to save them? I think it does. And I want to tell you about a project to save plants. And the way that you save plants is by storing seeds. Because seeds, in all their diverse glory, are plants' futures. All the genetic information for future generations of plants are held in seeds. So here is the building; it looks rather unassuming, really. But it goes down below ground many stories. And it's the largest seed bank in the world. It exists not only in southern England, but distributed around the world. I'll come to that. This is a nuclear-proof facility. God forbid that it should have to withstand that.
所以如果所有人类的生命依赖于植物, 难道很难理解我们或许该拯救它们? 我想应该很好理解。 我想告诉你们有关于一个可以拯救植物的项目。 拯救植物的方法 可以通过保存种子来实现。 因为种子,有多种值得称赞的功能, 其中一种就是[它们]是植物的未来。 所有用于将来生产植物的遗传信息 都保存在种子里。 因此这里有一座建筑物。 它看上去很普通。 但却埋在地下好几层深。 并且是世界上最大的种子库。 它不仅存于英格兰南部, 并且将会分布在世界各地。我将会实现这个愿望的。 这是座可以防核爆的建筑物。 但愿不会发生,但(种子库)必须得承受得住(核爆)。
So if you're going to build a seed bank, you have to decide what you're going to store in it. Right? And we decided that what we want to store first of all, are the species that are most under threat. And those are the dry land species. So first of all we did deals with 50 different countries. It means negotiating with heads of state, and with secretaries of state in 50 countries to sign treaties. We have 120 partner institutions all over the world, in all those countries colored orange. People come from all over the world to learn, and then they go away and plan exactly how they're going to collect these seeds. They have thousands of people all over the world tagging places where those plants are said to exist. They search for them. They find them in flower. And they go back when their seeds have arrived. And they collect the seeds. All over the world.
那么如果你要建一座种子库,你必需得决定 你所要保存(植物种类)。对吧? 所以我们决定首先保存 濒危植物品种。 和旱生植物种类。 因此我们和 50个不同国家达成协议。 这意味着要跟50个国家的管理者 和部长们谈判 并签订各项协议。 我们在全世界有120个合作机构, 在所有标橘红色的国家中。 人们来自世界各地学习(保存种子所需要的技术)。 然后回去并计划具体如何 收集这些种子。 分布在世界各地的成千上万的人 他们先标记目标植物的潜在栖息地。 并寻找它们(植物种子)。他们会找处于开花期间的植物。 然后等产生种子的时候再回来。 然后他们收集这些种子。在全世界范围内。
The seeds -- some of if is very untechnical. You kind of shovel them all in to bags and dry them off. You label them. You do some high-tech things here and there, some low-tech things here and there. And the main thing is that you have to dry them very carefully, at low temperature. And then you have to store them at about minus 20 degrees C -- that's about minus four Fahrenheit, I think -- with a very critically low moisture content. And these seeds will be able to germinate, we believe, with many of the species, in thousands of years, and certainly in hundreds of years.
有些种子(的保存)不需要什么技术。 有的你只要把它们都铲到袋子里然后晾干。 做上标记。然后做些高技术的活。 或者非技术性的活。 然后最主要的是你必须得把它们弄干 要在低温下非常的小心。 然后你得把它们保存 在大约零下20度 -- 也就是零下4华氏温度,我想 -- 还要在一个非常准确的低湿度条件下。 这样这些种子才能发芽, 我们认为,对很多种类来说, 在几千年后, 并且在几百年后肯定可以发芽。
It's no good storing the seeds if you don't know they're still viable. So every 10 years we do germination tests on every sample of seeds that we have. And this is a distributed network. So all around the world people are doing the same thing. And that enables us to develop germination protocols. That means that we know the right combination of heat and cold and the cycles that you have to get to make the seed germinate. And that is very useful information. And then we grow these things, and we tell people, back in the countries where these seeds have come from, "Look, actually we're not just storing this to get the seeds later, but we can give you this information about how to germinate these difficult plants." And that's already happening.
如果你不确定这些种子是否能孕育出植物,那么收藏它们是没有意义的。 因此,每10年我们会做种子发芽试验 即是对我们已经收藏的种子样本做测试。 如今的网络是分布性的, 因此,分布于世界各地的人也会做同样的测试。 而这使我们能够拟出种子发芽的草案。 这意味着我们能够从测试数据中 得到冷热的适当结合, 以及这种冷热的循环使得种子发芽。 这些都是非常有用的信息。 然后我们把这些信息传播开来, 分享给那些种子原产地国家的人们, “看,其实我们不止是收藏这些数据 来得到种子, 但我们可以给你们一些启示 即是如何让那些难以种植的植物更好的生长。” 而这个办法已经实现了。
So where have we got to? I am pleased to unveil that our three billionth seed -- that's three thousand millionth seed -- is now stored. Ten percent of all plant species on the planet, 24,000 species are safe; 30,000 species, if we get the funding, by next year. Twenty-five percent of all the world's plants, by 2020. These are not just crop plants, as you might have seen stored in Svalbard in Norway -- fantastic work there. This is at least 100 times bigger. We have thousands of collections that have been sent out all over the world: drought-tolerant forest species sent to Pakistan and Egypt; especially photosynthetic-efficient plants come here to the United States; salt-tolerant pasture species sent to Australia; the list goes on and on.
那么我们现在已经达到了什么程度呢? 我很高兴想大家宣布:我们的第30亿颗种子, 即是第三千百万的那颗种子 已经成功储存了。 (这意味着)地球上所有植物物种的百分之十, 有24000的物种是安全存活的。 如果我们到明年能够得到足够的资金,安全存活的物种可以达到3万。 即是到2020年,数量可以达到全球植物总量的25%。 它们不止包括农作物, 这些农作物可以在挪威斯瓦尔巴特群岛的储存室看到。 那里的景象是非常壮观了。 它的面积至少要比其他储存库大100倍。 那里储存着成千上万的种子收藏, 这些种子曾经也被分布到世界各地。 耐旱树种送到巴基斯坦和埃及。 而那些需要光合作用的植物 就被送到美国。 耐盐牧草物种就送到澳大利亚。 这样的例子不胜枚举。
These seeds are used for restoration. So in habitats that have already been damaged, like the tall grass prairie here in the USA, or in mined land in various countries, restoration is already happening because of these species -- and because of this collection. Some of these plants, like the ones on the bottom to the left of your screen, they are down to the last few remaining members. The one where the guy is collecting seeds there on the truck, that is down to about 30 last remaining trees. Fantastically useful plant, both for protein and for medicine.
这些种子是用来恢复植被的。 比如那些动植物生存环境已经受到破坏的地区, 像美国的大草原, 或者是许多国家的矿井地区, 这些物种使得以上类似的地区在生态上得到了修复。 多亏了这些收藏, 其中一些植物,如屏幕上, 左下角的这些植物, 它们是存活下来极少数的树, 而这些植物的种子正是收藏者在货车上与人交易得到的, 这是最后剩下的30棵树。 它们及其重要, 不管是对蛋白质还是药物提供都是很重要。
We have training going on in China, in the USA, and many other countries. How much does it cost? 2,800 dollars per species is the average. I think that's cheap, at the price. And that gets you all the scientific data that goes with it. The future research is "How can we find the genetic and molecular markers for the viability of seeds, without having to plant them every 10 years?" And we're almost there. Thank you very much. (Applause)
我们的植物组织培养正在中国,美国, 已经其他国家进行。 这些培养费用共需要多少呢? 平均每个物种需要2800美元。 我认为在价格方面还是比较便宜的。 因为很多科学数据 都是从这些培养中得到的。 今后的研究是“我们该如何找到 影响种子生命力的 基因和分子生物组成的迹象, 从而不需要每隔十年才确定可以种植?” 我们快要成功了。 非常感谢。 (掌声)