The Green Ark Foundation

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Costa Rica - Santa Barbara de Heredia

Institution Code:

BGCI Member: No

A beautiful collage of our ethnobotanical garden!
A beautiful collage of our ethnobotanical garden!

About the The Green Ark Foundation

Located in Santa Barbara de Heredia, Costa Rica, on a beautiful eight-hectare property, The Ark Ethnobotanical Garden is the heart of The Green Ark Foundation. The Garden started in 1991 as a producing fresh herb farm with a botanical garden collection in the center that grew over the next 20 years to be what it is today; a medicinal plant repository and a place to learning about the medicinal, culinary and commercial uses of plants. Our founders’ dream to educate about the use and benefits of plants to improve the life and well-being of the planet and ourselves, began in India where he served as a Peace Corp volunteer. During his time there, Harve Thomas (Tommy) began collecting and learning about the many properties of herbs and plants for all living creatures. In 1987 he moved to Costa Rica where he continued to collect botanical species as well as start a very successful herb sale and export company. Upon the sale of his company in 2015, Thomas created the Green Ark Foundation (2017) and opened the ethnobotanical garden to the public as a place of learning and being one with nature.


Our mission is to share the ancestral knowledge that is sadly being lost along with the biodiversity that sustains it, therefore we aim to educate on the use and benefits of plants to improve the life and well-being of the planet and ourselves. When visiting the garden, learning starts with a visit to our thematic ethnobotanical garden terraces- a Medicinal Garden, a Culinary Garden, a Tropical Food Garden (Milpa), an Essential Oils Garden, and a Natural Colorants Garden-. A newly built Victorian greenhouse is home to an Orchid collection and opposite a flowering tree pathway leads to a Sacred (entheogens) Garden, two fruit orchards and a tropical flowering ornamental garden bordering a small creek and a soothing bamboo trail. Our potting area and nurseries with more than 300 species are also part of the tour of our botanical garden as is our new restaurant, The Ark, where a tasting menu of five plates prepared by our chef with ingredients sourced in the early morning from our garden.


Workshops and educational courses: We offer a large variety of workshops and educational courses to visitors and students on the commercial uses of plants such as medicinal plant preparations, essential oil extraction, alcohol tinctures, food dehydration, natural colorant extraction, preparation of plant-based fungicides, insecticides, and repellents, worm composting, organic fertilizers, mushroom cultivation, tree grafting, orchid growing and farm to table cooking, among others. We are currently setting up an online course platform to continue educating and sharing our knowledge about plants and their uses.

Main Address:
The Green Ark Foundation
Apdo 298-3009
Santa Barbara de Heredia
40401 Costa Rica

Telephone: + 506 2269 4849
Fax:
URL: https://www.theark.green/
Primary Email: mcoffey@theark.green

Staff Details

  • Director's Name: Isabel Simpson
    Curator's Name: Harve Thomas
    Plant Records Officer's Name: Harve Thomas
  • Total Staff:
    Horticultural Staff Number: 16
    Educational Staff Number: 1
    Research Staff Number:
    Administration Staff Number: 4

About the Garden

  • Institution Type: Botanic Garden
  • Status
  • Status: Private: No
    Status: State: No
    Status: Educational: Yes
    Status: Municipal: No
    Status: Satellite: No
    Status: Trust: No
  • Date founded: 2017
  • Physical Data
  • Natural Vegetation Area: Yes
    Natural vegetation area: Size: 1 Hectares
  • Landscaped Area: Yes
    Landscaped Area: Size: 6 Hectares
  • Total Area: 7 Hectares
    Latitude: 10.0382275
    Longitude: -84.168793
    Annual Rainfall: 2200 mm
    Altitude: 1200.00 Metres
    Total area of shadehouses: 5000 Metres
  • Additional Locations
  • Satellite Garden Names: None
  • Locality: Information
  • Locality: Garden Name: El Arca Verde
  • Local Address: De la Y Griega Rosales 800 m North Santa Barbara, Heredia, Santa Bárbara, 40401. Calle Sabaneta
  • Locality: City: Santa Barbara
  • Locality: State: Heredia

Features and Facilities

  • Herbarium: No
    Arboretum: Yes
    Arboretum Size: 3
  • Micropropagation/ Tissue Culture Facilities: Yes
    Seed Bank: No
    Published Plant Catalogue: Yes
    Computer Plant Record System: Yes
  • Open to public: Yes
    Friends society: No
    Retail Outlet: Shop: Yes
    Retail Outlet: Plant Sales: Yes
    Disabled access: No
  • Number of Visitors: 2000
    Number of Volunteers: 2

Plant Collections

  • Special Collections:-
  • Invasive Species Monitoring: Yes
    Invasive Species Policy: No
    ABS Policy: Yes
    Plant Collection Policy: Yes

Conservation Programmes

  • Conservation Programme: Yes
    Medicinal Plant Programme: Yes
    Ex Situ Conservation Programme: No
    Reintroduction Programme: No

Research Programmes

  • Biotechnology: Yes
    Plant Breeding: No
    Conservation - Biology: No
    Conservation - Genetics: No
    Data Management Systems and Information Technology: No
    Ecology: No
    Ecosystem Conservation: No
    Education: No
    Ethnobotany: No
    Exploration: No
    Floristics: No
    Horticulture: No
    Invasive Species Biology and Control: No
    Molecular Genetics: No
    Pollination Biology: No
    Restoration Ecology: No
    Seed/Spore Biology: No
    Systematics and Taxonomy: No
    Sustainability: No
    Pharmacology: No
    Agriculture: No
    Land Restoration: No
    Urban Environments: No

Education Programmes

  • Visitor/Education Centre: Yes
    Education Signs in Garden: Yes
    Public Lectures/Talks: Yes
    Education Booklets/Leaflets: No
    Guided Tours: Yes
    Permanent Public Displays: Yes
    Special Exhibitions: Yes
    Courses for School Children: No
    Courses for University/College Students: No
    Courses for General Public: Yes
    Education Programme: Yes