Eden Project

Eden's new Rainforest Aerial Walkway

We have started building a new Rainforest Aerial Walkway experience inside our Rainforest Biome, designed to be Europe’s leading rainforest education resource.

Uncovering the rainforest

Man showing Polynesian stick map to children
The Rainforest Aerial Walkway immerses visitors in the rainforest’s science and stories. Take a tour…

Human connections

Boy examining leaf with magnifying glass
The experience takes science out of the classroom and into the field.

Explorers’ experiences

Aerial rope bridge through the rainforest
Ariel rope traverses, trekking trails and equipment provide a true adventure.

Weather Station

Architect's model of the weather station in the rainforest canopy walkway
This learning space is filled with all fashion of weather-monitoring equipment.

Inspired by nature

Weaver bird and nest
The design for the Biodiversity Nest is based on a real bird's nest.

Interaction and creativity

Family looking at fruit in Eden's rainforest
Exhibits and sculptures show how much we rely on rainforests for products.

Inspiring conservation

Tree frog walking on branch
Rainforests are home to half the world’s species – the Walkway is all about inspiring action.

The forthcoming Rainforest Aerial Walkway experience aims to give visitors a real sensation of life in the canopy of the rainforest. The project will create a series of walkways and encounters in the treetops. From paths and caves set in the sheer cliff face, the walkways will snake out through the steamy canopy immersing visitors in the majesty, mystery and wonder of the forest. 

The new walkway will highlight the stories and the plight of our rainforests, immersing visitors in the experience and teaching people not only about the importance of rainforests but also about what they can do to help save them. 

Work has begun offsite on the larger components of the walkway, designed by architects Blue Forest and the Eden team, and we are working on new plant exhibits and landscaping to accompany the new walkways. The Rainforest Biome remains open to visitors so you’ll be able to see it progressing, with the first part of the experience scheduled to open to visitors by June 2013.

Support our Rainforest Aerial Walkway

Our new aerial walkway will be an inspirational and transformative experience. A generation that does not understand or value the natural world will not strive to protect it, but Eden is uniquely placed to demonstrate the vital role rainforests play in all our lives and to inspire action.

We're already half way to our target but need your support to reach our goal. Donate now and help us achieve this.

  • £5 could enable a schoolchild to take part in a canopy challenge workshop
  • £15 could purchase a seed for a new tropical giant
  • £100 could help us build one of the buttress root structures to support the treetop walkways

How to support the project

What the Canopy Journey includes:

  • Base Camp
    • The Base Camp will set the scene for the Walkway experience, introducing visitors to the wonders of the rainforests and the first spectacular views over the rainforest canopy.
  • Walkways
    • Leaving Base Camp, the walkway path leads through the Rainforest Biome, at one point even going behind Eden’s waterfall to a secret, hidden cave. Bridges come out from this path at canopy height to a series of learning spaces and exciting experiences.
    • The walkways will provide a highly experiential journey: a feeling of walking though old ruins in the forest, alcoves of artefacts and artistic installations, telescopes and binoculars trained out and down onto specific plants and parts of the Biome. 
  • Nest
    • From the main walkway, explorers will be able to visit a huge ‘bowerbird nest’, a lattice of timber and living plants used as a space to learn about rainforest biodiversity. Here we will gather and display exhibitions of rainforest biodiversity and carry out a range of workshops with young people. 
    • Over 100,000 different species can be found in one hectare of rainforest. A mobile hanging above the Walkway at this point will comprise thousands of droplets each depicting a different species.
  • Weather Station
    • A learning space filled with dials, thermometers, floating weather balloons, hygrometers, and all fashion of strange but fully operational weather-monitoring equipment, the Weather Station will contain information explaining how rainforests control the earth’s climate. 
    • Our school visitors will be able to use authentic equipment to produce genuine measurements of conditions in the Biome and we aim to link from here to canopy scientists and meteorologists working in the field. 
  • Field Station
    • The journey culminates at a Field Station, where you can get practical ideas on how to help look afer the forests that look after you.

Rainforest is the glue that holds the climate of our planet together. Lose the forest and it will have devastating consequences for all life on earth.

Professor Sir Ghillean Prance

Video

Aerial rope bridge through the rainforest

Canopy Journey

Find out what the new walkway will be like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch