CAMBRON CASTEAU: With its cold, rainy weather, Belgium may not seem like the ideal place for birds accustomed to the hot, humid jungles of the Amazon or the searing heat of Africa.

But Eric Domb went against the odds to realize his dream of building a huge bird park on the site of a ruined Cistercian abbey, that once belonged to one of Napoleon's generals.

Nestled in a corner of the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia, the 55 hectare Parc Paradisio is home to more than 3,000 birds, including the Red-billed Toucan, Scarlet Ibis and the endangered Siberian Crane.

"I am passionate about nature," Domb told reporters at his office, bird cries echoing in the background. "I am not a biologist by training. I am a lawyer and an economist but I love flowers, I love animals."

The birds live in almost complete freedom.

Some roam around the park, surrounded by exotic plants and the abbey's ruins, while others live in tropical forests recreated in large greenhouses.

"The idea behind it is to have less aviaries and enclosures and more freedom for the birds and, most of all, more exchange between birds and the visitors," Domb said.

He shrugs his shoulders when asked about Belgium's grey skies, saying a rainy day discourages 10 per cent of visitors.

Domb also contends with an annual five-month closure of his business over the winter period.

But exceptionally sunny weather in Belgium this year helped the park set a record month for visitor numbers in April.

Help from friends

Domb had to deal with more than the usual bad weather when he set up the park almost a decade ago.

Initial financing to buy the site fell through, forcing Domb to rely on friends before negotiating with bankers.

Work began in early 1994, which left little time to open the park in time for that year's tourist season.

"It was very difficult. We had to work very quickly because if we lost the tourist season of 1994, we were done for," he said.

"The first year, we had no experience, budgets exploded, visitor numbers were not what we had expected.....because we made totally stupid forecasts."

Domb hired Steffan Patzwahl, scientific director of a bird park near Hamburg in Germany, to select the birds for his park.

"It's really the story of two people - a great bird specialist and a non-specialist. That's how this adventure started," Domb said.

The park had about 160,000 visitors in 1994, rising to about 500,000 a year after nine years in business. It first turned a profit in 1999 when it listed its stock on the Brussels market.

Most visitors come from Wallonia, while the rest travel from Belgium's northern Dutch-speaking region of Flanders, and France.

Domb is trying to attract more Flemish visitors to raise annual numbers to 800,000.

The former lawyer said he took a risk in the early years keeping only birds as they best suited his vision of the park.

"Birds do not have mass appeal," he said. "(But) they bring out the best in flowers with their colours, their singing...it seemed obvious to start with them."

In 2000, Domb enlarged the park to attract a wider public, introducing primates and later installing a huge aquarium.

Sea lions now swim in a pool at the bottom of a man-made cliff and Amazonian squirrel monkeys jump on unsuspecting visitors. Soon the park will get two different species of hippopotamus.

The park formed a venture with the World Wildlife Foundation to teach people about nature and how to protect it.

The venture led to a joint exhibition in a huge whaling boat on the relationship between man and nature down the ages.

Domb still has big plans for the park, constantly thinking of ways to improve it.

As he walks around Paradisio picking up any rubbish left lying around, he says he lives and breathes the park.

"I am always thinking of Paradisio, I live it, I am immersed in the project the whole time," he said.

Agencies via Xinhua

(China Daily 06/17/2003 page1)