A Vision of Eden

The Importance of The Eden Project to the Green Movement

The Eden Project is much more than just another theme park. At a superficial level, it certainly makes an entertaining day out for all the family, even though it lacks the roller-coasters and thrills of Alton Towers or Thorpe Park. The Eden Project offers thrills of a different kind.

 The visitor is greeted by the extraordinary dome shapes of the biomes in the former clay pit. From the visitor centre they appear relatively small due to the perspective and the vast size of the pit, but as you approach the biomes you begin to marvel at their size, and the extraordinary feat of engineering that they represent.

The biomes represent the cutting edge of technology and science on the one hand, with the triple layer of plastic film forming the skin of the biomes. But on the other hand the hexagonal shapes of the panels, borrow from nature the strength that is used by bees for their hives, giving the structures beauty.

On arriving at the entrance to the biomes their sheer size leaves the visitor in awe. They are the largest conservatories in the world. Inside, the thrills continue. In the tropical biomes the visitor can see bananas, pineapples, coffee and cocoa plants growing thousands of miles from their natural habitat. In the sub-tropical biome there are oranges, lemons,  and grapes. It is quite amazing to see these kinds of crops growing in Britain.

Eden offers all the thrills, but with masses of educational information thrown in. Every part of the site offers information, not in the usual way of traditional museum way of imparting information from on high, but in an exciting and entertaining way, synthesising many different ways of imparting information using all the senses, music and art. There are wandering guides in the biomes imparting through their enthusiasm interesting facts about the adjacent plants.

That the Eden Project exists at all is a minor miracle. The team that worked to achieve their vision overcame the fears of local people about what was being built on their doorstep, hacked their way through a Byzantine nightmare of bureaucracy and funding mechanisms, and struggled with the physical challenges of trying to build revolutionary structures in a former clay pit in some of the worst weather Cornwall has experienced.

So what can the Eden Project teach the Green Movement? Building The Eden Project required a team from completely different backgrounds to work together, with creative people working alongside hard-nosed financiers and tough construction workers. The construction process explored what were at the time innovative contract terms in which the participants worked together in partnership rather than in the traditional way in which the contractor is seeking maximum profit. Many of the people who worked on the project either worked at risk, or for substantially lower salaries than they could have achieved elsewhere, out of a shared commitment to the vision of producing something inspiring and important. In tackling the world’s environmental problems greens will have to work in partnership with people from many different backgrounds to find common ways of working.

The Eden Project shows how mankind can work with nature – the biomes exploit the fact that the Cornish climate is naturally more benign than the rest of the UK. The site itself exploits the shelter of the clay pit and its south-facing aspect. Clever design minimises the energy input required to grow tropical plants in the UK climate. Given our love of plant products from exotic parts of the world, growing some of these  plants in the UK will reduce the pollution from food miles.

The Project used cutting end science to achieve its aims, in the same way that we are going to have to in order to overcome the threat of climate change. Many greens are suspicious of technology, seeing it as part of the problem, but if we are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without major sacrifices and reverting to the primitive, we are going to need to use science. It is already clear that the great majority are not going to accept cutbacks and sacrifices in their lifestyles to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, so we are going to have to rely on science to come to the rescue.

The Eden Project is also a regeneration project on a massive scale. Cornwall suffers some of the worst deprivation in the UK with high unemployment and low wages. The Eden Project is built on the site of an exhausted clay pit, one of many which scar the landscape around St. Austell. Large areas of the earth have become environmental deserts or wastelands due to the way we have treated the natural world. Eden shows how regeneration can happen in the most unlikely places, and with great success.

Eden is a major employer and seeks to set a good example by paying above minimum wages, and encouraging training and progression. The green movement is about much more than just saving endangered species: there is already a strong social conscience and much of the way Eden is run represents good practice in action.

The Eden Project is a major supporter of local business, and seeks to reduce food miles by sourcing much of its produce from apple juice to ice-cream from local firms. This is precisely what greens have been calling for, and the Project shows how it can be done, and be profitable.

The Eden Project is a major source of inspiration to millions of people who have visited, many new to green ideas and principles. The green movement has at times struggled to reach outside the three million people who belong to an environmental group of some description to the wider population. Eden shows how it can be done.

Critics of The Eden Project have focussed on the number of visitors who arrive by car, as many do. However, those running the Project encourage people to come by public transport, and a high proportion arrive by coach. In addition, as was pointed out at the planning stage, if the car visitors were not visiting the Eden Project in their cars they would only be visiting somewhere else. It is the transport sector, which represents one of the greatest challenges in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. There is always more that can be done but the Eden Project does at least encourage people to arrive by public transport.

There is always more that might be done, and given the success of The Eden Project it might seem churlish to suggest improvements. It would be good to seen the biomes support more wildlife such as butterflies and birds so that they would recreate a whole habitat. Another area the Eden Project might work on in keeping with its green ethics would be to have demonstrations of renewable energy such as solar panels and small-scale wind turbines given the growing public interest and the sympathetic audience. The Eden Project is already about much more than just plants and it would be good to see the vision extended even further.

Overall, The Eden Project is one of the most inspiring places you could ever visit, and acts as a beacon showing how the near impossible can be achieved in the unlikeliest of places if people work together. The challenges represented by climate change at times seem impossible to overcome. The Eden Project shows that with sufficient drive and vision the human race can achieve extraordinary things, and we might just be in with a chance.