Garden of Eden for the world

Australia and New Zealand to get Eden projects – in China there will be three

Eden Project, the natural world record-breaking tourism experience in Cornwall is to go global.

Sir Tim Smit, ex top record producer and now dynamic eco attraction founder said: "Eden’s mission is to explore our dependence on the natural world, to use that understanding to excite people into delivering transformation where they live and to ask really serious questions about what a great future might look like for all of us.

"We want the new Edens to act as a heartbeat for those who feel the same way as we do and to develop in all of them the ability to tell the stories that inspire the people who are their constituency."

Sir Tim added: "We need to green the desert of our mind, we need to fertilise our imagination and we need to believe that the future remains ours to make."

The launch of the new initiative comes after four successive years of consistently healthy trading by the Eden Project, which first opened in a disused china clay quarry near St Austell in Cornwall in 2001.

In its first 16 years, Eden has attracted more than 19 million visitors and generated £1.7 billion for the regional economy.

The new international team will also be responsible for delivering a number of projects in the UK.

Eden Project International is currently working on three projects in China and others in Australia and New Zealand. Other overseas projects, including some in the Middle East and North America, are due to be announced in the coming months.

Eden Qingdao will explore the theme of water and its importance for life on earth. Construction is due to begin later this year.

The second major project in China is in the historic city of Yan’an, famed for being the end of Chairman Mao’s Long March and north of the Xian, home of the terracotta warriors.

This project will explore the theme of land and soil and its importance for life on earth. The project will showcase ecological restoration as a vital tool for the future and restore a degraded site just outside the city into a fertile valley full of flowers, agriculture, craft and education.

The third Eden project in China is based at Sheng Lu Vineyard in Beijing. The aim is to create a place to reconnect with nature. Education and training programmes will run from here, offering the chance for children and adults to play in natural environment. Eden has been asked to provide support in turning the vineyard into a profitable and educational visitor attraction as well as supporting education and offering horticultural and landscaping advice.

Macquarie Point Development Corporation (MPDC) of Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, approached Eden as the corporation is looking to regenerate an environmentally-damaged piece of land (15 hectares) around the port area. MPDC contacted Eden as they were seeking a flagship/anchor for the mixed-use development.

Hobart itself is a rapidly developing city with an alternative side which has been brought to the fore by the Museum of Old & New Art (MONA).

In Christchurch,  New Zealand, Eden is working with a local trust to develop plans for a social enterprise and attraction in an area of the earthquake-damaged Red Zone. Here Eden will explore stories of nature and culture and will include restoration of native ecology along the iconic River Avon shoreline. There will be benefits for the community and tourism with the aim of boosting visitors to the city again.

Valere Tjolle

@ValereTjolle