The past teaches us that when you get major changes to the environment or climate, change is rapid and radical, and loss is permanent. Life is persistent, but the specifics of how that life exists at any one time can be very fragile.
Almost all those species and ecosystems share one thing - they are gone. Earth has been home to millions of species and an uncountable number of different ecosystems. In short, I think the answer is perspective. What do you hope people will gain from this glimpse into our planet’s past? Much of the experiential aspect comes from having been in various types of environment myself, and where that was lacking, I'd read others' accounts of travelling and living in, say, polar landscapes, or watch videos of lahars, to get a sense of what things actually would feel like. Once I'd settled on a few organisms to focus on, I'd fill in the rest of the story, making sure to (once again) find justifications in the literature for choices about behaviours, details of the environment, and so on. I'd start with a list of organisms known from a site and work out what stories could be told that linked together under a single ecological theme to be explored in that chapter. I researched Otherlands through the scientific literature, mostly. What an amazing honour to be considered for such a prestigious list! I have loved several of the previous winners, so to now be listed alongside one - whichever it turns out to be - is really exciting.
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