Bioarca Food Forest Gathering – Seed the Knowledge, Feed the Forest

The Bioarca sits on the western edge of the Osa Peninsula, and is connected to Parque Corcovado, one of the largest protected zones of lowland tropical rainforest on the Pacific coast of Central America. Our 56 hectares consist of about 90% untouched jungle — a living cathedral of strangler figs, howler monkeys, scarlet macaws, and tapirs. The other 10% is a designated human zone, that is mostly open and holds some basic wooden structure for humans to stay and gather, work and learn. 

The Río Claro forms the south-western boundary, wide and deep enough to swim, and beyond its banks lies Parque Corcovado, which serves as a sanctuary for 2.5% of the planet’s biodiversity, due to its geological formation, isolation for long time periods, and its particular climatic conditions. This geography gives the Bioarca a rare and urgent role of a buffer zone, a living link between protected wilderness and the communities that surround it.

Photo: View of the Bioarca Highland Cloud Forest and Lowland Tropical Rainforest.

The Story Behind It

Our co-founder Dustin Bartok spent a lot of time in the Ecuadorian Amazon with friends from the Siekopai community. They have taught him a lot about multi-generational techniques of growing food in the rainforest. Practices that enrich habitat rather than clear it. That produces abundance — for people and for the animals sharing the land. Systems of plant knowledge and farming practices, refined over countless generations.

Yet, Dustin also observed a different, more alarming story in Ecuador, but also in Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica: These communities, who have grown their own food for countless generations, are running into a new generation that has no interest in continuing to learn these familial farming practices. 

The Bioarca itself grew from that tension. A family that had lived on and with this land, chose in 2014 to let go of it. They passed it on to our co-founders Dustin and Richard with the intention to transform it into a living site of practice and protect its long term conservation purpose. On the board of the Costa Rican conservation nonprofit are two of the family members. The responsible stewards on site come from outside the region and aim to learn collaboratively from local and indigenous ecological knowledge traditions.

Photo: Friends and neighbors gathering to plant ginger and bananas. 

Bringing the Knowledge Together

The Bioarca Food Forest Gathering is a small, specific, deeply intentional act to plant food in the forest, bring the knowledge keepers in while we still can and keep what is learned.

In March/April 2027, we aim to host a two week long gathering of farmers, land stewards, and multi-generational knowledge keepers from different places in the Osa region — joined by knowledge keepers and friends from Ecuador and the US, if possible. 

What unites them is not a curriculum but a shared passion: soil, seeds, plants, water, and the art of growing food in a rainforest ecosystem.

The gathering will move between conversation and practice:

• Share — each person brings their own experience: how they plant, how they cope with insect and animal appetites, how they save seed, and how they use these foods to create their favorite recipes. 
• Plant — discussion gives way to work teams with hands in the earth, planting a diverse canopy of fruit trees and understory crops that shade and protect the clay soil from the intensity of the equatorial sun.
• Feed — the food forest feeds the humans on the land, and leaves plenty for the wildlife that shares it
• Save — knowledge demonstrated and taught will be recorded, creating a body of knowledge that outlasts the gathering itself.

Foto: Gathering with Brunka community on the Bioarca, March 2023

Our Objectives 

Primary Objectives

• Plant a Food Forest area of 2,000 sqm

Our baseline goal is to get the areas around the original cabin in the “human zone” of the Bioarca planted out. That is an estimated planting zone at 0.5 hectare. It is the area where most of the successful trees have been established. It also has the benefit of being closer to where the humans spend the most time, making it easier to keep an eye on the plants in their early stages. The watering system is accessible in this area and allows us to water the younger plants during the dry season.

• Gather local community and knowledge keepers 

We aim to gather 4-7 knowledge keepers and participants from the region. With a maximum Budget we will be able to bring in knowledge keepers from Ecuador. Our aim is reciprocal exchange of practice, relationship, meals, stories and ecological knowledge and also plant a seed of future gatherings of this kind.

• Creating a Community Archive

To keep the knowledge of growing food in the rainforest within the community and beyond, we aim to record for each plant, information on seed saving, planting, nurturing, harvesting and use. The bilingual (spa/eng) PDF will be available for download on the Bioarca website. Knowledge sharing is consensual, contributors are compensated/equal collaborators, documentation remains accessible to contributors and local communities. Project prioritizes relationship building over output.

Foto: Celebrating a rich harvest of manzana rosa.

Our Bigger Vision 

This project is another milestone to grow and nourish the community around the Bioarca. By creating a wider awareness for the project and possibility to come together we hope that we eventually also grow the community of local stewards committed to sustain the project long term as a commons. Food available on the land will also support minimum needed human presence on site. So far out in the jungle, food accessibility is limited. Last but not least, the food forest also leaves extra for wildlife – like the Pizote, who loves the Guayaba and the Baird’s Tapir, who enjoys the pineapples – and thus serves also as an experiment in human-wildlife co-existence. Yet, overall it feeds back into our core mission: To protect this magnificent wild place on earth.

Foto: Tapir footprint on the Bioarca next to Manus’ hand, Feb 2026