December 13, 2009
The bounty of nature, writes Tim Smit, “should make us humble at the miracle of the living systems that provide for us on this beautiful planet home of ours.”
Absolutely. And Tim Smit knows better than most, since he’s the visionary spirit behind a remarkable environmental theme park and education centre called The Eden Project. Visiting the site on a raw December day is a heartening and powerful experience.
Created from an abandoned open-pit mine in Cornwall, England, the Eden Project is a “global garden” designed to demonstrate humanity’s complete dependence on plants, a “living theatre of plants and people.” It’s an exhibition space, the home of innumerable initiatives in environmental education and restoration, a living demonstration of what we really can do to place ourselves in harmony with the planet.
And it’s a huge hole in the ground.
The original China-clay pit was 60 meters deep, with an area as large as 35 football fields. Its bottom was 15 meters below the water table. Today it’s an enormous sunken garden dominated by two huge bubble-like domes called “biomes.” The architect got the idea for the design when he was washing dishes and contemplating the soap suds. The end result looks a little like a sprawling set of geodesic domes, made up of air-filled plastic “pillows.”
The larger biome encloses a tropical rainforest, while the other envelops a Mediterranean landscape. They are, says the Guinness Book of Records, the largest conservatories in the world. The Tower of London could fit inside the Rainforest Biome.
Walk inside the Rainforest Biome. It’s steaming hot inside, and your glasses instantly steam over. Take them off. The bow of a huge trading ship looms over you among the coconut palms, bamboo groves, looping vines and kapok trees. The trail meanders through the forest, leading you from one specific habitat to another.
Here are tropical islands, with mangrove swamps and a rare Coco-de-Mer tree from the Seychelles.. A miniature West African farm grows cassava, coffee and cocoa. A Malaysian home garden contains herbs, spices, rice and neem trees. Beyond a huge waterfall, South American art decorates a rock face, linking human life to the plants that sustain it. Other plants in this explosive living environment include soya, cola, rubber, cocoa, pineapples, cashews.
Wild vegetation in the tropics is under merciless attack from mining, lumbering and the expansion of plantations — think palm oil, rubber, cocoa. The exhibits in the Eden Project constantly remind the visitor that an area of tropical forest as large as the Rainforest Biome is lost every 10 seconds, and it links up the exhibits with partner organizations — like the Forest Restoration Research Unit of Chang Mai University in Thailand — that are taking action to combat the losses.
The project itself tries to model sustainability in every aspect of its operations. Its captured rainwater irrigates the plants, flushes the toilets and maintains the misty humidity in the indoor rainforest. Rather than trucking in earth for the plants, the Eden Project built its own soil — 83,000 tonnes of it — from mine wastes, sand and compost, a remarkable demonstration of environmental regeneration. It is developing a geothermal heating and electrical system based on deep wells driven deep into the earth’s crust. It even gives a discount on admission to visitors who arrive by bicycle.
When he conceived the Eden Project, Tim Smit had already made a fortune in the music business, retired to Cornwall and restored a large Victorian garden nearby. Like all great entrepreneurs, he was able to mobilize others with his vision, and his group eventually raised L140 million from such sources as the British Millennium Commission, the local development agency and the European Union. Since 2001, the project has created more than 400 full-time jobs and 200 part-time jobs, and its 11 million visitors have added L900 million to Cornwall’s economy. This is green business with a vengeance.
Despite the difficulties we face, we should “take heart” from the sheer miraculousness of our planet, says Smit. The Eden Project’s purpose is to build “an understanding that we can rise to the challenges and face the future with hope.” A great message. A great project. It was a privilege to visit there.
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