The mayor of Valencia, Joan Ribó, has approved plans to build a new 'adventure park' as part of the established Bioparc complex. Taking its inspiration from the tropical rainforests of Cambodia, the new park will offer canyoning, abseiling, climbing and a multitude of slides, alongside a park and an area to bathe and relax.
The project - proposed by Rain Forest, the company that currently manages Bioparc - will aim to recreate the temples of Angkor on Spain's Mediterranean coast. The head of Rain Forest, José Maldonado, said the project would be aiming for a "very natural" look, with "semi-ruined" buildings like the famous temples in Cambodia.
For his part, Ribó expressed his "satisfaction" with the initiaive, believing it to be "an important step" towards "completing the range of attractions for familes and young people in the city". He said it would be "a very novel experience" that would put the finishing touch to the Parque de Cabecera area of the city and to Bioparc in particular, and promised to let the project go "full steam ahead" and that he would request a "small land re-classification" in order to be able to present it "without delay" to the Generalitat".
Rain Forest's Maldonado underlined the importance for him of developing a project that would be "interesting for the people of the city, both environmentally friendly and cultural" while at the same time being "viable", given that over €25 million of private investment is involved.
He believes this adventure park will complete the "circle of emotional, intuitive and artistic vision of nature that is at the heart of Bioparc with a more active and entertaining vision of nature." We will be bringing an "attractive, fun, unique and novel area" to Valencia, he added.
The new adventure park will cover an area of four hectares and will be accessed via the catering and customer service area in the central square, as is currently the case with Bioparc. Rain Forest were granted a 50-year licence to use the land in question 12 years ago and they pay an annual fee.
With regard to the farmland that borders the land to be used for the park, Ribó explained that it would "remain separate from the park" and that the farms would "be restored to full use". One of them contains an ancient system for farming silk, and the intention is to plant more mulberry trees and create and educational area for children.
