I’ve seen Australia’s beloved gumtrees dying and it makes me wonder: if they can’t survive, how can we?

‘There is something about seeing trees dry out and turn brown, with bark splitting and leaves desiccating, that makes my insides knot,’ writes Jess Harwood. Illustration: Jess Harwood/The Guardian

Last week I went to Adelaide to see a man about a tree. The man was Dr Dean Nicolle and the tree was actually 10,000 eucalypt trees and mallees, of over 800 species, which Dean has been planting on a block of land south of Adelaide since 1993.

Dean’s passion for eucalypts is incredible. It makes me realise that so much conservation happens purely because someone is just absolutely captivated by something. And thank goodness Dean is, because his love for the eucalypt made the Currency Creek Arboretum, which is designed to bring together all of Australia’s eucalypt species in one place for research.