In the side of a mountain in Arctic sits the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a safe house for seeds of every crop in the world. Meant for use after natural disasters, Syria plans to open it for a man-made one: war.

A gene bank has been working on creating heat-resistant wheat for growth in hot, dry countries. With the war, their amount of seeds to work with is close to nothing. They will draw seeds out of the “Doomsday Vault” for future research undisturbed by the war.

“You know that climate change is a reality and climate change is changing the whole environment in terms of more drought, hotter environments and even new diseases,” Mahmoud El-Solh, director of the gene bank told CNN.