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Shaded-relief view of the land around Matama, Limón, Limón Province, the parcel boundary drawn in gold

3,545 ha inside the gold line

5 km

Shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

Matama, Limón, Limón Province

3,545 ha · 9.866, -83.146 · Costa Rica

75out of 100 · Land ScoreAnchor

The land is ahead of you. Stay with it.

90th percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 54 conservation priority

Water: 85
Soil: 74
Ecology: 59
Climate: 67
Pressure: 92

11 of 17 sources answered · higher is better on every pillar; pressure reads calm · silent: osm_overpass, sentinel2_ndvi, sentinel1_rtc…

The reading in full

This 3,545-hectare parcel near Matama, Limón, Limón Province is ecologically strong land whose work is stewardship, not repair. It scores 75 out of 100 on the Dear Wise Earth Land Score.

The risks that most shape a decision here: Rainfall has been declining over the past two decades. Water planning should target the drier conditions ahead, not today's averages; storage and drought-tolerant choices matter more here. The terrain is steep, which constrains construction and raises erosion risk. Steep slopes increase building and road costs, limit machinery access, and make the land more prone to erosion and landslides.

Where the upside lies: The soil is rich in organic carbon, a strong base for farming and restoration. Carbon-rich soil holds water and nutrients well, supports higher yields and faster regrowth, and may qualify for soil-carbon programs. Most of the parcel reads as tree cover. Tree cover can carry real conservation and carbon value, but satellite land-cover cannot tell natural forest from a monoculture plantation (oil palm, rubber, teak). Confirm which it is before assuming biodiversity or carbon value.

The wider readings: Models project a warmer and wetter climate here by 2050. Expect a warmer and wetter future here; favour species and infrastructure that tolerate the projected range. Rainfall is very high. Abundant water supports productive growth but raises the risk of flooding, waterlogging, and nutrient leaching, so drainage and slope matter. Little wildlife has been formally recorded here. A low record count usually reflects limited survey effort rather than low biodiversity, so a ground survey is needed before drawing conclusions.

What the land is telling us: The land reads as holding rather than actively regenerating: the standing cover is intact, but the water or vegetation signal is under strain, so the trajectory turns on how the coming dry years are managed. Of the land's core processes, the water cycle reads as adequate to abundant, so the question is less supply than how well the land captures and holds what falls and community dynamics are barely recorded here — an absence of data, not necessarily of life. What orbit cannot see is what happens below the surface — soil biology, structure, and the carbon held in the ground — so treat those as the first things to confirm underfoot. Taken together, this is ecologically strong land whose work is stewardship, not repair. Its clearest strength to build from is that the soil is rich in organic carbon, a strong base for farming and restoration.

The ground and its cover

Terrain · shaded relief — Matama, Limón, Limón Province — Terrain · shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

Land cover · ESA WorldCover 2021 — Matama, Limón, Limón Province — Land cover · ESA WorldCover 2021 · ESA / Copernicus

The verdict, the five pillar readings, how much of the land was read, and the headline figures.

The verdict

75out of 100 · Land ScoreAnchor

The land is ahead of you. Stay with it.

Matama, Limón, Limón Province

ReclaimCultivateRestoreAnchor

90th percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 54 conservation priority

Five readings

Water85

Soil74

Ecology59

Climate67

Pressure92

Weakest: Ecology

All five read on one axis: higher is better. Pressure scores calm, so a high number means little human pressure on this land.

Standing

90thpercentile

Subtropical · Neotropic · against 34 readings · 89th of all 100

Coverage

100%

weight read

11 of 17 layers answered

Every pillar read from live data.

Silent: the river and road trace, Sentinel-2, the radar +3.

Where the capital goes

54/ 100 priority

Frontierhospitality fit 70

Best-fit model

Ecolodge / retreat

52 / 100

Fit from published rules over the indicators.

The land in numbers

Area

3,545ha

Elevation

367m

82–834 m

Slope

8.1°

Buildable bench

not read

Forest cover

97%

Canopy height

not read

Rainfall

3,712mm/yr

-9% over 20 yr

Warming to 2050

+0.8°C

rain +10%

Soil carbon

48.9g/kg

pH 5.5

Nearest road

not read

Species records

47records

GBIF, the global species archive

Headline figures. The Why tab carries each reading in full, with its source and its date. “Not read” means the source had nothing for this parcel: a gap is named, never filled with a guess.

How this land works

About 3,712 mm of rain falls here in a year. 97% of the parcel is under tree cover, and the ground slopes 8.1° on average, enough to move water without tearing soil where roots hold it. By 2050 the models expect +0.8 °C and +10% rain, so every flow above runs a little differently than it does today.

Holding — 4.2% of the tree cover lost since 2000.

To help: keep the canopy whole; the loop is running the right way on its own.

The score is the footnote. What matters is the pattern above it: what arrives, what the ground does with it, what leaves, and which way that is moving.

This place

3,545 hectares at Matama of strongly rising land around 367 m. The ground reads 97% under canopy. Water shapes it — 3,712 mm of rain a year.

Its vocationinhabit carefully

Fund conservation through low-footprint hospitality. Accessible and scenic beside standing habitat, with a hospitality fit of 70/100, this land can carry a small, low-footprint operation whose revenue funds the conservation.

367 m elevation97% forest8.1° slope3,712 mm rain/yrFrontier tier — outside the mapped network

Its trajectoryholding, but drying— the canopy has held while the rain record fell -8.5%.

This is an outsider's reading, assembled from instruments and public records. It is where understanding begins, not where it ends — the land, its neighbours, and the people who know it hold the rest.

The threads

Where the readings connect. Each thread follows one chain of cause and consequence across the instruments, and ends in what it means for what you do.

Each line is tagged with how it is known: recorded, from the historical archive · observed, measured from satellite or map data · estimated, from a model, not a measurement · derived, reasoned from other readings on this page.

The forest here has held for a generation.

recordedThis canopy has held: 94% cover in 2000, 4.2% lost since, none of it recent.

What to doThe work here is keeping, not fixing — and the first walk should confirm the stand is as intact up close as it reads from orbit.

Bears on the land's living value · high confidence

The water here is thinning.

observedThe twenty-year rain record moved -8.5% — this is a place whose water is changing, not holding.
estimatedDry spells head toward ~11 days by 2050 — water security, storage, and drought-tolerant planting become the design constraints here.
derivedNote the disagreement: the observed archive moved -8.5%, while the 2050 model says +10%. Neither cancels the other — the archive is what happened, the model is one projection. Design for the envelope: storage for the dry record, drainage for the wet projection.

What to doPrice water storage into any plan and verify the dry-season sources on the ground.

Bears on any plan that needs water · medium confidence

Strong land, standing on its own.

derivedThe Land Score reads 75 against a conservation priority of 54.
derivedIts value is intrinsic rather than positional — the network does not depend on it, which frees what it can be.

What to doPlans here answer to the land itself, not to a network obligation.

Bears on what a plan owes the landscape · medium confidence

For its kind of land, its calm (low pressure) stands out.

derivedAgainst 34 readings of like land (Subtropical · Neotropic), this parcel's calm (low pressure) ranks in the top 10%.
derivedAn unusual strength is the thing to protect first — it is what its peers do not have.

What to doWhatever plan is made, it should be one that cannot spend this calm (low pressure) down.

Bears on what this land is, relative to its kind · medium confidence

The loops that govern it

Regeneration is not a feature added to land; it is a loop changing direction. These are the ones the readings can see, which way each is running, and where a hand changes it.

Forest and water

canopy → cloud and rain held → streams and soil moisture → canopy

holding

97% tree cover on 3,712 mm of rain; 4.2% of the tree cover lost since 2000, last in 2023.

Keep the canopy whole; the loop is running the right way on its own.

Reading the place

This 3,545-hectare parcel near Matama, Limón, Limón Province is ecologically strong land whose work is stewardship, not repair, scoring 75 out of 100. The reading that most shapes the work here is that rainfall has been declining over the past two decades. Its main strength is that the soil is rich in organic carbon, a strong base for farming and restoration. The first move: build a water budget sized to the projected dry spell, not the annual average.

Riskmedium confidence

Rainfall has been declining over the past two decades.

Water planning should target the drier conditions ahead, not today's averages; storage and drought-tolerant choices matter more here.

Annual rainfall is down about 8% over 20 years (linear trend, 2004–2024).

Riskhigh confidence

The terrain is steep, which constrains construction and raises erosion risk.

Steep slopes increase building and road costs, limit machinery access, and make the land more prone to erosion and landslides.

Mean slope 8°, with 752 m of elevation change across the parcel.

Opportunitymedium confidence

The soil is rich in organic carbon, a strong base for farming and restoration.

Carbon-rich soil holds water and nutrients well, supports higher yields and faster regrowth, and may qualify for soil-carbon programs.

48.9 g/kg soil organic carbon in the top 30 cm, clay texture, pH 5.5 (ISRIC SoilGrids).

Opportunitylow confidence

Most of the parcel reads as tree cover.

Tree cover can carry real conservation and carbon value, but satellite land-cover cannot tell natural forest from a monoculture plantation (oil palm, rubber, teak). Confirm which it is before assuming biodiversity or carbon value.

97% of the parcel reads as tree cover (satellite land-cover mapping). Naturalness is not verified.

Climatemedium confidence

Models project a warmer and wetter climate here by 2050.

Expect a warmer and wetter future here; favour species and infrastructure that tolerate the projected range.

Projected change by 2050: +0.8 °C mean temperature, +10% rainfall. Exposure rated Moderate.

Waterhigh confidence

Rainfall is very high.

Abundant water supports productive growth but raises the risk of flooding, waterlogging, and nutrient leaching, so drainage and slope matter.

3,712 mm of rain per year.

Biodiversitylow confidence

Little wildlife has been formally recorded here.

A low record count usually reflects limited survey effort rather than low biodiversity, so a ground survey is needed before drawing conclusions.

Only 47 biodiversity records nearby (GBIF, the global species-record archive).

Confidence reflects the data behind each reading: high when clear passes or strong sources agree, medium on a partial or single-source signal, low where the data is sparse or indirect. A low-confidence reading usually needs one more clear pass, or a check on the ground.

What the land is telling us

The land reads as holding rather than actively regenerating: the standing cover is intact, but the water or vegetation signal is under strain, so the trajectory turns on how the coming dry years are managed.

Of the land's core processes, the water cycle reads as adequate to abundant, so the question is less supply than how well the land captures and holds what falls and community dynamics are barely recorded here — an absence of data, not necessarily of life. What orbit cannot see is what happens below the surface — soil biology, structure, and the carbon held in the ground — so treat those as the first things to confirm underfoot.

Taken together, this is ecologically strong land whose work is stewardship, not repair. Its clearest strength to build from is that the soil is rich in organic carbon, a strong base for farming and restoration.

Where the capital goes · corridor & deployment

54Conservation priority

FrontierCore habitat

Standalone conservation value, outside the mapped network.

standalone value, outside the mapped network

Two lenses, two numbers: the Land Score reads this land's own body; conservation priority reads its position in the network. When they disagree, the gap itself is the finding.

Nearest declared corridor: Corredor Biológico Talamanca–Caribe, about 9 km · Área de Conservación La Amistad-Caribe (ACLAC)

This reads as intact habitat to secure, scoring 54 out of 100 for conservation priority. It carries standalone value outside the mapped network — worth holding on its own terms. A small, low-footprint operation (fit 70/100) could fund the work from the already-worked ground.

70/100

Hospitality fit

The funding layer: a small, low-footprint operation sited on the already-worked ground, sized to carry the restoration — never spending the habitat it depends on.

Corridorlow confidence

The nearest declared corridor is the Corredor Biológico Talamanca–Caribe, about 9 km away (screening).

The parcel reads as outside the mapped network, so its connectivity value comes from what it holds and what protected land sits beside it rather than a corridor mandate. That corridor links Parque Internacional La Amistad, Refugio Gandoca-Manzanillo, Parque Nacional Cahuita.

Nearest PNCB screening extent ~9 km. Extents are approximate — confirm against SINAC/PNCB.

Conservationmedium confidence

This reads as intact habitat — the priority is to secure it, not rebuild it.

Standing natural forest is far cheaper to protect than to restore, and holding it inside a corridor keeps the connection open. Securing tenure and legal protection is where capital does the most here.

97% tree cover.

Hospitalitymedium confidence

A small hospitality operation could carry the conservation here.

In the regenerative model the lodging is a means, not the end: a low-footprint operation sited on the already-worked ground earns the revenue that funds the restoration and stewardship, while the core is left to recover. Kept small, it also gives the corridor local guardians with a reason to hold it.

Hospitality fit 70/100, drawing on standing forest, relief for views. Site any building on the already-worked ground, not the habitat.

Capital moves

01
Secure this land first — through purchase, or a conservation easement that survives a change of owner.
Before committing
Intact corridor habitat holds its value only while it stays intact; locking in protection before the land turns over is the move capital cannot undo.
Confirm on the ground · Confirm title and boundaries with a local lawyer, then scope a servidumbre ecológica (ecological easement) and FONAFIFO's PSA forest-protection payment (Pago por Servicios Ambientales — Costa Rica's national payment for keeping forest standing) against the parcel.
02
Protect the standing forest and remove the active threats to it.
First visit
The habitat is already here; the work is to keep it — stopping clearing, fire, and hunting pressure holds far more value than any planting would add.
Confirm on the ground · Walk the boundary for signs of encroachment, fire, and hunting; agree the protection terms with neighbours who share the edge.
03
Site a small, low-footprint hospitality operation on the already-worked ground to fund the stewardship.
Once the land is secured
A modest operation on the already-worked ground earns the revenue that pays for the restoration and the guardians, without spending the habitat it depends on.
Confirm on the ground · Model the operation at a size the land can carry, keep it off the habitat, and check the Certificado de Sostenibilidad Turística (CST) and local zoning before designing anything.
04
Set a connectivity baseline and re-read it — camera traps aimed at the movement the corridor was declared to carry.
Ongoing
Funders and partners judge a corridor by whether wildlife actually moves through it; a repeatable baseline is what turns the thesis into evidence and steers the next round of capital.
Confirm on the ground · Run camera traps and species counts on a fixed schedule, aimed at the connectivity this corridor was declared for — the descent from the La Amistad highlands to the south-Caribbean coast and its reefs.

The deployment reading is a screening lens layered on the Land Score — it points capital at the land where it builds the most connectivity, and each move is paired with the ground-truth step that confirms it. Corridor extents are approximate PNCB screening footprints; confirm a parcel against the official SINAC/PNCB record.

How it compares

90thpercentile · Subtropical · Neotropic

Ranked against 34 readings · same thermal belt

89th percentile against all 100 readings so far — the cohort rank above is the fairer one; this is the wider one.

Stronger land than 90% of the 34 readings logged in Subtropical · Neotropic. Freedom from development pressure is its strongest signal here (90th percentile), water its weakest (42nd).

Percentile by reading · higher is better land

Water

42nd

Soil

79th

Ecology

60th

Climate

57th

Low pressure

90th

Percentiles compare this reading against the growing corpus of public TERRA readings in like land — not all land on Earth. They sharpen as the wall grows.

The physical frame

Climate, water, soil, and shape — what the land is made of and what moves across it.

Climate · to 2050

Annual rainfall, 2004–2024 · mm

22.3°C

Mean temp

+0.8°C

2050 Δ temp

+10%

2050 Δ rain

Exposure · Moderate

2050 sits within a single planning horizon — about 24 years out. The models expect seasons here about 0.8°C warmer than today's, with 10% more rain. Expect is the honest verb: this is the middle of a range of futures, not a certainty — so design to the range, not to today.

Water

3,712mm/yr

Rainfall

-8.5%

20-yr trend

—km

To watercourse

Soil · 0–30 cm

48.9g/kg

Org. carbon

5.5

31%

Sand

40%

Clay

Terrain & cover

367m

Elevation

8.1°

Mean slope

97%

Forest

Built

Tree cover 97%Grassland 3%

The living surface

What grows here, what is being lost, and what presses on it.

Ecology

Recorded wildlife observations

GBIF · the global species-record archive

Begonia carletonii · Agalychnis lemur · Ctenitis hemsleyana · Ramphastos ambiguus

Pressure

Source unavailable for this parcel.

Forest history · since 2000

94%

Tree cover 2000

4.2%

Cover lost

2023

Latest loss

Hansen Global Forest Change GFC-2023-v1.11

Record & context

What the state and its institutions say about this ground.

Costa Rica ecological corridor

Nearby

Corridor

~9 km away

Área de Conservación La Amistad-Caribe (ACLAC)

Conservation area

Corredor Biológico Talamanca–Caribe

The descent from the La Amistad highlands to the south-Caribbean coast and its reefs.

Connects · Parque Internacional La Amistad · Refugio Gandoca-Manzanillo · Parque Nacional Cahuita

PNCB / SINAC — Corredores Biológicos (screening reference) · approximate screening extent — confirm against the official SINAC / PNCB record

See the corridor network →

Below the surface

The fungal networks that move water and nutrients between roots.

Underground fungal networks

Outside

Arbuscular fungi

partners of most crops & pastures

Outside

Ectomycorrhizal fungi

partners of much timber & forest

SPUN Underground Atlas (Van Nuland et al. 2025) · 1 km model of underground fungal biodiversity · hotspots = global top decile of predicted richness

Best-fit regenerative model

Ecolodge / retreat

52 / 100 fit

Fund conservation through low-footprint hospitality.

Accessible and scenic beside standing habitat, with a hospitality fit of 70/100, this land can carry a small, low-footprint operation whose revenue funds the conservation.

Accessible, scenic land beside standing habitat. A small, low-footprint operation on the worked ground earns the revenue that pays for the restoration.

367 m elevation97% forest8.1° slope3,712 mm rain/yrcorridor ~9 km

Also consider · Corridor anchor reserve (51) · Watershed protection (36)

A published, rules-based suggestion read from the parcel's own indicators — forest, water, slope, access, and its place in the network. It names the shape of project the land is already set up to carry; confirm it against tenure, soils, and what you know from the ground. These fit numbers rank whole project models against each other; the deployment lens's hospitality fit (70/100) is a different scale that asks only whether a small lodge could fund the stewardship here — the two need not match.

What to do

01
Build a water budget sized to the projected dry spell, not the annual average.
First dry season
Water, not the yearly total, is the limiting factor here; storage and drought-tolerant choices decide what the land can carry.
Confirm on the ground · Measure the springs, wells, and watercourses at the end of the dry season, when supply is at its lowest — that is the number to plan against.
02
Design roads and structures to the contour, and get a geotechnical and erosion assessment before any earthworks.
Before committing
Steep ground raises building and access costs and erosion risk; the terrain sets the layout, not the other way round.
Confirm on the ground · Have a geotechnical engineer assess slope stability and cut-and-fill on the ground before a road line is committed.
03
Ground-truth what the canopy actually is before assuming forest value.
First visit
Satellite land-cover cannot separate natural forest from a monoculture plantation, and the difference decides the conservation and carbon value.
Confirm on the ground · Walk the stand: one species in rows is plantation; mixed ages and species with natural regeneration is forest. A botanist can confirm.
04
Carry out a field biodiversity survey to see what the records miss.
First year
A thin record here usually reflects little survey effort, not little life; what actually lives on the parcel shapes both its value and its constraints.
Confirm on the ground · Have an ecologist survey across seasons; local naturalists and birders often already know the site.
05
Visit the land to confirm the reading and protect what already works.
First visit
The core systems read as sound; the priority is to keep them that way and avoid degrading them.
Confirm on the ground · Walk the parcel with the reading in hand and note where the ground agrees and disagrees with it.

Questions to sit with

At the end of the dry season, where does water still hold on this land — and what would keep it there a month longer?
Standing under the canopy, is it one species or many — and which parts would you protect rather than replant?
Are you here to hold this land as it is, to work it, or to help it change — and does the reading above serve that intention?
If the work succeeds, what do the water, the canopy, and the people around this land look like a generation from now — and what is the first condition that has to change for that to begin?
Where does this reading disagree with what you have seen walking the land? That disagreement is the first thing to check on the ground.

These are not data gaps — they are the questions the data cannot answer.

Ask the analyst

Answers are grounded in this parcel's reading and tagged by basis — observed is measured, derived is reasoned from measurements, estimated is model-based, and unknown is said plainly. The conversation stays in your browser.

Reading this land to

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Sources & method · 11 layers→

Biodiversity — GBIF

Occurrence records (count + top species)

point · live

Mixed CC0 / CC-BY / CC-BY-NC (per dataset)

Ecological corridors — PNCB / SINAC (Costa Rica)

Declared biological corridors (bundled screening reference of official corridors; approximate extents — confirm against SINAC/PNCB)

screening extent · PNCB (rolling)

Public programme (SINAC); reference compiled for screening

Regional illness — dengue burden (Costa Rica)

Dengue notifications by cantón 2013–2018 (suspected + probable + confirmed) + national series to 2024; bundled OpenDengue V1.3 extract — historical burden geography, not the current season

cantón · 2013–2018 (cantón) / 2024 (national)

CC-BY 4.0 (OpenDengue)

Place — OpenStreetMap / Nominatim

Nominatim reverse geocode

settlement · live

ODbL 1.0

Terrain — AWS Terrarium (Mapzen)

Terrarium elevation tiles

~10 m (z12) · 2017

Open (attribution)

Climate — Open-Meteo

Archive 2004–2024 + MPI-ESM1-2-XR to 2050

~9 km · 2004–2024 / 2045–2049

CC-BY 4.0 (data); non-commercial API tier

Soil — ISRIC SoilGrids v2

SoilGrids v2.0 (SOC, pH, sand, clay; 0–30 cm)

250 m · 2020

CC-BY 4.0

Land cover — ESA WorldCover

WorldCover 2021 v200

10 m · 2021

CC-BY 4.0 (commercial promotion: notify due@esa.int)

Surface water — JRC Global Surface Water

Global Surface Water v1.4 — occurrence & seasonality

30 m · 1984–2021

Copernicus / open (attribution)

Forest loss — Hansen Global Forest Change

Global Forest Change (tree cover 2000 + annual loss)

~30 m · 2000–2023

CC-BY 4.0

Underground fungal networks — SPUN Underground Atlas

Top-decile hotspots of predicted AM + ECM fungal richness (Van Nuland et al. 2025, Nature; Zenodo 10.5281/zenodo.14871588)

1 km · 2025 (v1.0)

No explicit license on the archive — terms requested from SPUN; attribution given

Every number above is public, open data — named, dated, and licensed. What TERRA does not publish is the lens: the weights, curves, and verdict thresholds that turn these layers into a Land Score. That judgment is calibrated from land walked on the ground, and it stays proprietary.

Unavailable for this parcel: the river and road trace, Sentinel-2, the radar, the national registry, the governance record, the thermal read — the affected pillars were reweighted, not guessed.

Generated Sun, 23 Aug 2026 23:50:47 GMT · 17.1s · synthesized by TERRA.