Researchers in Australia are building a "living seed bank" to protect the continent’s last-remaining fragments of rainforest from climate change. One goal is to avoid the extinction of ancient trees, whose ancestral roots trace back to Gondwana, the supercontinent that existed before Earth's continents separated hundreds millions of years ago.
Historically, Australia's lush Big Scrub Rainforest flourished across 185,000 acres (75,000 hectares) of eastern Australia. But over the centuries, human encroachment and wildfires have shrunk it to just 1% of that original expanse. Now, rising temperatures and drought threaten the remaining fragments.
