The town council of Cuevas del Almanzora has voted in favour of a project which will be unique in Europe. The council has agreed to cede 30,000 square metres of council property in the area known as El Zorzo for the creation of the 'Fundación Museo del Desierto y de la Aventura Joel Lode'.
Joel Lode, born in Nantes, France, has lived in Cuevas for eight years and participated in the creation of the Desert Springs golf course. He is a member of the International Organization on Study of Succulent Plants, part of the UNESCO Botanical Commission and has spent more than thirty years travelling the deserts of the world studying succulents and cacti. He is the author of several books including an encyclopaedia of deserts and another on cacti. The desert museum will be home to his collection of 14,000 plants representing more than 4,000 species of cacti and succulents valued at more than 180,000 euros.
The museum will consist of a desert garden with plants distributed according to their geographic origins, allowing visitors to take a botanical journey around the world, a greenhouse and museum of the deserts which will display the objects collected by Joel in his travels including poisoned arrows from Kalahari tribesmen, prehistoric stones, Australian aboriginal objects or baskets made by Papago Indians. As well as the botanical garden and museum there will be a library with books dedicated to the subject, a photo library with more than 30,000 transparencies, a museum of the cactus with hundreds of objects dedicated to these curious plants, a greenhouse dedicated to cultivation of cacti for sale to the public, a gift shop, restaurant and parking.
No comments:
Post a Comment