Rainforest Biome

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Trek through the steamy rainforests of Malaysia, West Africa and South America in the world’s largest conservatory

Eden’s Rainforest Biome takes you on a fascinating journey of discovery into the humid tropical regions of the world, showing you the plants that grow there, and all the wonderful things they give us.

The Rainforest Biome is an impressive piece of engineering. It contains nearly 1,129 plants from the main rainforest regions: South-East Asia, West Africa, South America and the tropical oceanic islands, particularly the Seychelles and St Helena.

Within this there are over twenty different displays, from a Malaysian Garden to a banana plantation.

Found out about Cocoa growing in the Rainforest Biome

Jungle adventures

The jungle holds the key to our future foods and medicines, why our climate is changing, and our understanding of how life works.

Eden takes you on an adventure high into the tree-tops, known as “the jungle canopy” - that last high frontier that only the most intrepid of explorers and scientists usually get to see.

Fantastic flora and fauna

During your travels you could encounter all manner of fantastic flora and fauna, including a flower that smells of decaying flesh, the biggest seed in the world, and a plant that can grow up to a metre a day.

Voyage of discovery

Find out how your chocolate grew, (you didn’t know chocolate grew? Well now you do!) where sugar comes from, what a cola tree looks like, as well as many more things you'll be amazed to learn.

Rainforest Biome facts and figures

• Size: 240m long, 110m wide, 50m high, 15,590m2
• Plants: Over 1,129 different species and cultivars
• Temperature: ranges from 18 oC to 35 oC
• Comfort: There are seats and drinking water fountains throughout and a cool room for emergencies
• Average temp 24c
• Average humidity 90%
• Height and name of the tallest tree Balsa, Ochroma lagopus, C. 30m. grown from seed

• Keep up to date with the latest planting, flowering and other goings on in the Rainforest Biome by following Eden Project: The Blog
• Keen photographer? Post your photos on our Facebook page

Glossary:

What is a biome?

A biome is a climatically and geographically defined area of ecologically similar communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, often referred to as ecosystems. Biomes are defined based on factors such as plant structures (such as trees, shrubs, and grasses), leaf types (such as broadleaf and needleleaf), plant spacing (forest, woodland, savanna), and climate.

Want to know more?

• You can sign-up to our monthly e-newsletter to be kept up to date with the latest Eden news.
• You should also check out the Eden Project online shop for books which delve deeper into the fascinating story of the Rainforest

Destroying the rainforests is costing us the earth

Tropical rainforests absorb nearly a fifth of all man-made CO2 emissions around the world, which helps greatly to minimise the effects of climate change. However, these same rainforests are currently being destroyed at the rate of an area the size of a football pitch every four seconds.

To make matters worse, when the rainforests are burnt down - to clear land for commercial farming or mining, for example - they release all the CO2 that they have stored back into the atmosphere. The alarming scale of this rapid burning of the rainforests around the world means that CO2 emissions from tropical deforestation are actually higher than from the entire global transport sector.

The Eden Project is working with the Prince's Rainforest Project to promote awareness of the urgent need for action against tropical deforestation, a major contributor to climate change.

What is The Prince's Rainforests Project?

The Prince’s Rainforests Project (PRP) was set up in 2007 by HRH The Prince of Wales following reports from leading climate change experts, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to promote awareness of the urgent need to take action against tropical deforestation. The Prince of Wales has long been concerned about climate change and about how destruction of the world’s rainforests contributes to rising temperatures and sea levels.

The PRP works with governments, businesses and non-profit organisations such as the Eden Project around the world to find solutions to deforestation - and to find them fast - with the ambition of ‘making the trees worth more alive than dead’.

“If deforestation can be stopped in its tracks, then we will be able to buy ourselves some much-needed time to build the low carbon economies on which our futures depend. I have endeavoured to create a global public, private and NGO partnership to discover an innovative means of halting tropical deforestation. Success would literally transform the situation for our children and grandchildren and for every species on the planet.” - HRH The Prince of Wales.