Dubai’s biodome beckons
THE GREEN PLANET, A FOUR-STOREY BIODOME AT CITY WALK, FEATURES A HUGE MANMADE TREE HOME AND 3,000 PLANTS AND ANIMALS
Afour-storey, tropical rainforest has sprouted inside a new biodome at City Walk in Dubai, replete with the world’s largest manmade tree supporting flora and fauna.
Opening to the public on Thursday, The Green Planet is set to “edutain” students, families and nature lovers alike in a standalone, indoor paradise sheltered within an origamistyle glass structure.
Gulf News was given a tour of the biodome on Sunday, which unveiled a dew-dropped world of 3,000 plants and animals in the high-humidity world of a South American rainforest.
Exploration revealed a colourful toucan gulping seeds with its giant bill, a pair of sloths sleeping in a tree while brightly coloured birds and five species of butterflies fluttered amid the thick foliage to the sound of a waterfall.
A pair of nocturnal prehensile tail porcupines rested in a corner enclosure as fish swam in a pond adjacent to a watery cave on the forest floor. Visitors can explore the biodome’s four floors via a spiral walkway around the giant tree with aerial passageways to the tree’s gargantuan trunk (think Ewok treehouses in Star Wars), or they can simply take elevators to the top of the canopy.
Meraas Holding, the firm that built the enclosed ecosystem, said The Green Planet will go a long way to teach youngsters the importance of environmental stewardship through a hands-on learning experience peppered with dozens of aquariums full of beetles, snakes and exotic insects.
Jean-Marc Bled, general manager Leisure and Entertainment at Meraas Holding, told Gulf News in an interview that “it’s been three years in
the making. The Green Planet is the first indoor tropical rainforest in the region. This is a fully integrated biodome, visitors can have an up-close-andpersonal encounter with plants and animals”.
Visitors entering the biodome will have to pass through an airlock to maintain the ecointegrity of the facility. “It maintains the humidity. It also keeps the animals in,” Bled said. Brad McTavish, lead architect for The Green Planet, said bringing the project together required a lot of teamwork.
“We gathered and worked very closely with zoologists, aquarium specialists and sophisticated mechanical and structural engineers to create the perfect habitat for the species at The Green Planet. What