The Eden Project

The original Garden of Eden is a symbol of paradise, but also of mankind’s rejection from it. Historically, conservation policies have also assumed that the best-quality environments are untouched by people and that environmental care meant keeping people out of them. The real situation is more complex than that.

Yes, humans have caused lots of problems in the world, but there are also places where we have lived in harmony with nature without complete destruction, and sometimes with a beneficial effect. Many of the challenges that lie ahead can only be met by people being there, not by their walking away. Communities have already begun to make steps to be effective stewards of the world. The Eden Project is here to showcase those steps.

We’re also here to show that environmental awareness is about quality of life, at all levels. The ‘environment’ is shorthand for issues that impact on us in a thousand ways every day, from the food we eat and the clothes we wear to the weather we enjoy or suffer. Understanding our world better, and the part we play in it, is also about having fun, not about living grey, hair-shirt lives. It is about celebrating the beauty and richness, both natural and man-made, of other countries besides our own’.