Celebrating Autism Awareness: Making Project Carnivora Accessible for All at Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm

As exciting changes are afoot at Noah's Ark Zoo Farm, the team shares how accessibility and inclusion is implemented every step of the way:

This Autism Acceptance Week, we reflect on how to create spaces that are inclusive and accessible for all, particularly those who are neurodivergent. At Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm, we are dedicated to designing experiences that cater to diverse learning and communication styles and enhance the visitor experience for everyone. Our latest initiative, Project Carnivora, highlights this commitment by offering a sensory-led, immersive environment that prioritizes accessibility and inclusion; opening in phases from late spring 2025.

Rhian Gunstone, Community and Engagement Manager at Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm, shares, “Creating an immersive, accessible experience is central to Project Carnivora. Our goal is to design a space that is inclusive for all visitors, including those who are neurodivergent, as well as being wheelchair accessible. We want everyone to be part of carnivore conservation in a way that works for them.”

Accessibility isn’t just about simply meeting legal requirements—it’s about doing what’s right for everyone. Ensuring our zoo is welcoming to all visitors not only makes a meaningful impact, but it also helps to creates lasting relationships with our community.

Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm’s Commitment to Inclusion

Since launching our Ark for All initiative in 2016, we have made significant strides to ensure that Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm is a truly inclusive destination. From adding Changing Places facilities to shaping our training and infrastructure around inclusivity, accessibility has become central to our mission. Over the past six years, we’ve seen a huge increase from visitors with who have disabilities as well as those who are neuro divergent. We continue to seek and respond to feedback in order to continually improve for visitors. Our website provides an accessible map, access guide, a 360 tour of our site, and a video showing a mobility scooter moving around the Zoo, aiming to help provide visitors with planning materials and additional information to improve their time with us.

We're still at the beginning of our journey and look forward to continually improving based on feedback from our visitors.

Project Carnivora: An Immersive, Accessible Experience

Project Carnivora introduces new species, habitats, and immersive viewing points, all with accessibility in mind. Beyond physical access, we have designed spaces that cater to sensory and communication needs and diverse learning styles, including:

• Quiet Space: A peaceful area for visitors who need a break from sensory overload.
• Sensory-Led Experiences: Interactive, play-based opportunities that encourage learning through physical movement, with minimal reliance on traditional signage.
• Audio and Visual learning: From visual pictorial sentences to spoken stories from our conservation partners; there will be something to help all visitors engage with our conservation efforts.
• Play Interventions: Engaging spaces around the carnivore habitats where visitors can connect with the environment and experience conservation firsthand.

Partnering for Conservation

Project Carnivora is built on strong conservation partnerships with organisations including Safina Lion Conservation. In 2024, we funded the completion of Safina’s Better Boma project to reduce human-animal conflict. The Better Bomas Project, is a campaign that aims to strengthen enclosures for livestock (bomas) in Kenya to reduce attacks by lions and other predators, improving the livelihoods of communities.

As part of our new visitor experience at Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm, we will be building on-site ‘replica bomas’ to offer a tactile learning experience where visitors will be able to interact with and explore a sustainable solution to one of the biggest threats to wild lion populations; human-animal conflict.

A Space for Everyone

At Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm, we believe that everyone should have the chance to connect with wildlife and conservation. Project Carnivora is more than just a new development; it’s a major step forward in our mission to make conservation accessible, immersive, and impactful for all.

We look forward to welcoming visitors to experience Project Carnivora—an experience designed for all.