Wild Seed

Published by CNN Travel

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Excerpt

It won't last for long -- "If you're not there at the right time you miss it," Wood laments --  and nobody knows when it will next occur.

So, he is on a mission, to collect and store genetically diverse seed from the endemic conifers most at risk from climate change in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.

James Wood is not a survival expert. He's a botanist from Kew Gardens in London, who now works in the seed bank at the Royal Tasmanian Botanic Gardens, in Hobart. He has never been on the Overland Track. He’s alone. Almost. In the midst of a pandemic. In the wilderness.

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