New Zealand

[catherine]

Too bad Zoe Bird is no longer visiting the forum.. she'd be a great cheerleader for your trip, kib.

[kib]

I think NZ was doing just fine with biodiversity, but it wasn't human-friendly - no mammals meant primates/humans were not part of the food chain on these islands, nothing evolved with us in the picture. The Maori colonists weren't as destructive as the Europeans (who are?), but they didn't belong there either. So now the Kiwis stand with a foot in both worlds, wanting to preserve the non-mammalian biosphere, and wanting to cultivate the island for human habitation. I don't know that this is possible, but doing away with the most destructive non-natives is a possible start to co-habitation, and a moratorium on importing anything else seems rather prudent to me.