Can we recreate a lost world? In Tasmania, anything could happen

The thylacine might walk again. Or Lake Pedder might rise again. The possibility of ecological restoration in the island state plays into the appeal of going back in timeThere is something about Tasmania that makes it a place where people want to restore the past, and not just because Tasmanians still regularly report seeing thylacines bounding off into the forest.Certainly, it's a retro kind of place. The landed gentry are still a thing, the powerful families of modern Tasmania tracing their ancestry back to the original squatters, who either took the land by force or bought it from the colonial government, no questions asked. Georgian mansions scatter the rural landscape; in Hobart, convict hewn stone is a building material of choice. Nearly 70% of Tasmanians had both parents born in Australia (the overall figure for the country is 47%), and more than 80% identify with a white ancestry (65% for Australia as a whole). If you ignore the giant cruise ships, the Teslas and the puffer jackets, you could imagine yourself in mid-century Australia. Continue reading...