First overseas Eden Project to be built in E China's Qingdao
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E-mail CGTN, October 18, 2017
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Since opening in 2001, Eden Project has become one of the most popular tourist attractions in the UK. Its stunning rainforest biome is evidence of how things can be turned around on environmentally damaged land. Now the ecological project is working to spread its message across the globe and its first overseas undertaking is taking shape in Qingdao City in east China's Shandong Province.
Built on the site of a former clay pit, Eden Project's giant biomes house the world's largest rainforest in Cornwall in southwestern England. It transformed an industrial wasteland into a paradise of brightly colored flowers and exotic tropical trees. The project has attracted more than 19 million visitors and generated 1.7 billion pounds (around 2.2 billion US dollars) for the economy of the area.
After 16 years, the Eden Project is proving to be a real success. Now the people behind it are planning to take the project's biomes across the globe. And the first big overseas project in the coastal city of Qingdao will be built on a large area of environmentally damaged land located at the confluence of two rivers where the soil is very salty and high in nitrates.
"It is factory land that needs regeneration," said David Harland, chief executive of Eden Project International. "Traditionally, it had prawn-breeding, it was a salt pan. It is an incredible site. It is on a peninsular.
"We imagine it a bit like Sydney Opera House site was at Sydney before the Opera House was built. What you will see there will be a large biome. It will tell the story of water more than plants, and there will be a number of supporting pavilions on that site."
After two years' of preparation, construction is expected to begin in 2018 and it is projected to open to visitors at the end of 2020. But the design of Eden China will be very different from its original in England.
"We are also very conscious that we don't know everything," head of policy at Eden Project, Augusta Grand, said. "People's problems and difficulties are very locally based. So the best people to fix the problem are the people who live there. So this is why we have a partnership model. It is not we are going to China and plunking a project there. It won't be same as this. It will be built with local people there, using local scientists, local knowledge, and local understanding."
The Qingdao project is one of three planned Eden centers in China. The second will restore a degraded valley in the historic city of Yan'an, famed for being the end of Chairman Mao's Long March. And the third one will be based at a Beijing vineyard that was formerly a rubbish dump.
"I think China has taken huge step towards around its environmental agenda over last five to ten years," Harland said. "We are very pleasant and surprised and we enjoyed our interaction with government and people in China, because there is increasing awareness of the need to change and the need to act as global citizens."
Besides China, Eden is also working in Australia and New Zealand, hoping to create a network of projects that can share the best of different elements.
Harland continued: "I think China is there at the front. President Xi has been talked about environment a lot recently. And Eden is lucky enough that we line up with some of those messages. We do want to talk about water, we do want to talk about air quality, we do want to talk about food security and food safety. But that is in line with what has been spoken about in China as well, so that is a good coming-together."
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