Public reading

Export full report →Open on the board →Read another →

Shaded-relief view of the land around Guaycará, Golfito, Puntarenas Province, the parcel boundary drawn in gold

100 ha inside the gold line

500 m

Shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

Guaycará, Golfito, Puntarenas Province

100 ha · 8.704, -83.034 · Costa Rica

63out of 100 · Land ScoreRestore

The land remembers what it was.

56th percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 45 conservation priority

Water: 74
Soil: 58
Ecology: 52
Climate: 72
Pressure: 55

9 of 13 sources answered · higher is better on every pillar; pressure reads calm · silent: sentinel2_ndvi, sentinel1_rtc, worldbank_wgi…

The reading in full

This 100-hectare parcel near Guaycará, Golfito, Puntarenas Province is land with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside. It scores 63 out of 100 on the Dear Wise Earth Land Score.

The risks that most shape a decision here: A meaningful share of this land's tree cover has been cleared since 2000. Long-term loss points to historical or ongoing clearing pressure and a lower conservation baseline; confirm the legal status and whether clearing is still active.

Where the upside lies: 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 drier climate here by 2050. The projected change is modest, so current conditions are a reasonable guide for planning. Rainfall is very high. Abundant water supports productive growth but raises the risk of flooding, waterlogging, and nutrient leaching, so drainage and slope matter. The land is gently rolling. Gentle terrain is generally workable with only minor grading for buildings or roads. 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. Soil organic carbon is moderate. The soil is workable but will benefit from cover cropping and organic inputs to build fertility before intensive use. The parcel is relatively remote. Distance from roads and towns means lower encroachment pressure and more privacy, but higher transport and operating costs.

What the land is telling us: The longer record suggests a land that has been drawn down rather than held: about 25% of its tree cover has been cleared since 2000, most recently in 2023. It reads as opened rather than recovered, but the history is the reason the foundational work comes first. 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 land with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside. Its clearest strength to build from is that most of the parcel reads as tree cover.

The ground and its cover

Terrain · shaded relief — Guaycará, Golfito, Puntarenas Province — Terrain · shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

Land cover · ESA WorldCover 2021 — Guaycará, Golfito, Puntarenas 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

63out of 100 · Land ScoreRestore

The land remembers what it was.

Guaycará, Golfito, Puntarenas Province

ReclaimCultivateRestoreAnchor

56th percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 45 conservation priority

Five readings

Water74

Soil58

Ecology52

Climate72

Pressure55

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

56thpercentile

Subtropical · Neotropic · against 34 readings · 61st of all 100

Coverage

100%

weight read

9 of 13 layers answered

Every pillar read from live data.

Silent: Sentinel-2, the radar, the governance record +1.

Where the capital goes

45/ 100 priority

Frontierhospitality fit 68

Best-fit model

Watershed protection

52 / 100

Fit from published rules over the indicators.

The land in numbers

Area

100ha

Elevation

316m

223–372 m

Slope

5.3°

Buildable bench

not read

Forest cover

95%

Canopy height

not read

Rainfall

5,659mm/yr

+30% over 20 yr

Warming to 2050

+1.0°C

rain -4%

Soil carbon

30.5g/kg

pH 5.5

Nearest road

4.3km

Species records

6records

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 5,659 mm of rain falls here in a year. 95% of the parcel is under tree cover, and the ground slopes 5.3° on average, enough to move water without tearing soil where roots hold it. 27 mapped watercourses cross the land (Quebrada Zumbona, Río Caracol). The nearest road is 4.3 km off, and the nearest settlement is 4.4 km away, which is the pressure the edge lives with. By 2050 the models expect +1 °C and -4% rain, so every flow above runs a little differently than it does today.

Holding — 24.8% of the tree cover lost since 2000; rainfall up 30% over twenty years.

To help: stop the clearing at the streams first: every metre of canopy kept along water holds the loop together.

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

100 hectares at Guaycará of rolling land around 316 m. The ground reads 95% under canopy. Water shapes it — 5,659 mm of rain a year, 27 traced watercourses. The nearest settlement is Río Claro, 4.38 km away.

Its vocationprotect

Hold the water tower for everyone downstream. Steep (5.3°), wet (5,659 mm/yr), and river-laced, this parcel's highest value is the water and soil it keeps in place for everyone downstream.

316 m elevation95% forest5.3° slope5,659 mm rain/yrFrontier tier — outside the mapped network

Its trajectoryunraveling— clearing is active on or around this land now.

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 · derived, reasoned from other readings on this page · official, from a public or state record.

The canopy is being lost right now.

recordedThis canopy is being taken now: 24.8% lost since 2000, latest loss 2023.

What to doNothing else on this reading matters until the clearing stops: identify the actor and the legal lever first.

Bears on the land's living value · high confidence

More water is arriving — and arriving harder.

observedThe twenty-year rain record moved +30.1% — this is a place whose water is changing, not holding.
derivedNote the disagreement: the observed archive moved +30.1%, while the 2050 model says -4%. Neither cancels the other — the archive is what happened, the model is one projection. Design for the envelope: drainage for the wet record, storage for the dry projection.

What to doKeep or restore cover on the slopes and size drainage for pulses, not averages; verify culverts and crossings in the wet season.

Bears on this land and the people downstream · medium confidence

Abundant water is also a legal shape on this land.

observed27 watercourses are traced on and around this parcel.
officialCosta Rica's Ley Forestal 7575 (art. 33) protects riparian strips — roughly 10–15 m along rivers in rural land, up to 50 m on steep banks and around springs.
derivedMultiply the strips by the watercourses and a material share of the parcel is likely untouchable by law — which is a constraint for building and a gift for conservation.

What to doMap the statutory buffer zones before pricing or siting anything — the buildable area is smaller than the deed.

Bears on how much of the land is actually usable · 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

running toward degradation

95% tree cover on 5,659 mm of rain; 24.8% of the tree cover lost since 2000, last in 2023.

Stop the clearing at the streams first: every metre of canopy kept along water holds the loop together.

The edge and the road

access → clearing at the edge → more edge → more access

holding

road 4.3 km, settlement 4.4 km; 24.8% tree cover lost since 2000.

Distance is doing the work here; keep it, and do not build the road that would end it.

Reading the place

This 100-hectare parcel near Guaycará, Golfito, Puntarenas Province is land with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside, scoring 63 out of 100. The reading that most shapes the work here is that a meaningful share of this land's tree cover has been cleared since 2000. Its main strength is that most of the parcel reads as tree cover. The first move: ground-truth what the canopy actually is before assuming forest value.

Riskhigh confidence

A meaningful share of this land's tree cover has been cleared since 2000.

Long-term loss points to historical or ongoing clearing pressure and a lower conservation baseline; confirm the legal status and whether clearing is still active.

About 24.8% of the parcel lost tree cover since 2000, most recently in 2023. It held 97% tree cover in 2000. Source: Hansen Global Forest Change GFC-2023-v1.11.

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.

95% of the parcel reads as tree cover (satellite land-cover mapping). Naturalness is not verified.

Climatemedium confidence

Models project a warmer and drier climate here by 2050.

The projected change is modest, so current conditions are a reasonable guide for planning.

Projected change by 2050: +1 °C mean temperature, -4% rainfall. Exposure rated Low.

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.

5,659 mm of rain per year. Nearest mapped watercourse is about 1.12 km away. The archive's 20-year trend reads about +30% — a swing that size deserves verification against local records before it informs any plan.

Terrainhigh confidence

The land is gently rolling.

Gentle terrain is generally workable with only minor grading for buildings or roads.

Mean elevation 316 m, mean slope 5°, 149 m of relief.

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

Soilmedium confidence

Soil organic carbon is moderate.

The soil is workable but will benefit from cover cropping and organic inputs to build fertility before intensive use.

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

Accesshigh confidence

The parcel is relatively remote.

Distance from roads and towns means lower encroachment pressure and more privacy, but higher transport and operating costs.

About 4.32 km to the nearest road, 4.38 km to Río Claro.

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 longer record suggests a land that has been drawn down rather than held: about 25% of its tree cover has been cleared since 2000, most recently in 2023. It reads as opened rather than recovered, but the history is the reason the foundational work comes first.

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 land with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside. Its clearest strength to build from is that most of the parcel reads as tree cover.

Where the capital goes · corridor & deployment

45Conservation 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 Osa, about 16 km · Área de Conservación Osa (ACOSA)

This reads as intact habitat to secure, scoring 45 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 68/100) could fund the work from the already-worked ground.

68/100

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 Osa, about 16 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 Nacional Corcovado, Parque Nacional Piedras Blancas, Humedal Térraba-Sierpe.

Nearest PNCB screening extent ~16 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.

95% tree cover, 25% cleared since 2000.

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 68/100, drawing on standing forest. 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 peninsular corridor holding Corcovado's lowland rainforest in contact with Piedras Blancas across the Osa.

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

56thpercentile · Subtropical · Neotropic

Ranked against 34 readings · same thermal belt

61st percentile against all 100 readings so far — the cohort rank above is the fairer one; this is the wider one.

About typical for the 34 readings logged in Subtropical · Neotropic. Climate resilience is its strongest signal here (73rd percentile), water its weakest (32nd). Rainfall is declining across the landscape to the south-west.

Percentile by reading · higher is better land

Water

32nd

Soil

33rd

Ecology

41st

Climate

73rd

Low pressure

53rd

Landscape · 7 readings within 47 km

·Rainfall is declining across the landscape to the south-west
·Land reads weaker toward the south-west

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

23.3°C

Mean temp

+1.0°C

2050 Δ temp

-4%

2050 Δ rain

Exposure · Low

2050 sits within a single planning horizon — about 24 years out. The models expect seasons here about 1.0°C warmer than today's, with 4% less 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

5,659mm/yr

Rainfall

+30.1%

20-yr trend

1.1km

To watercourse

Quebrada Zumbona · Río Caracol · Quebrada Tigre · Río Coto Colorado

Soil · 0–30 cm

30.5g/kg

Org. carbon

5.5

33%

Sand

38%

Clay

Clay loam

Terrain & cover

316m

Elevation

5.3°

Mean slope

95%

Forest

Built

Tree cover 95%Grassland 5%

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

Megaptera novaeangliae · Polistes erythrocephalus · Synoeca septentrionalis · Oophaga granulifera

Pressure

4.3km

To road

4.4km

To settlement

Río Claro

Forest history · since 2000

97%

Tree cover 2000

24.8%

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

~16 km away

Área de Conservación Osa (ACOSA)

Conservation area

Corredor Biológico Osa

The peninsular corridor holding Corcovado's lowland rainforest in contact with Piedras Blancas across the Osa.

Connects · Parque Nacional Corcovado · Parque Nacional Piedras Blancas · Humedal Térraba-Sierpe

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

See the corridor network →

Best-fit regenerative model

Watershed protection

52 / 100 fit

Hold the water tower for everyone downstream.

Steep (5.3°), wet (5,659 mm/yr), and river-laced, this parcel's highest value is the water and soil it keeps in place for everyone downstream.

Steep, wet, river-laced ground whose highest value is the water and soil it keeps in place. Protect and reforest the slopes; the beneficiaries are downstream.

316 m elevation95% forest5.3° slope5,659 mm rain/yrcorridor ~16 km

Also consider · Corridor anchor reserve (48) · Ecolodge / retreat (43)

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 (68/100) 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
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.
02
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.
03
Walk the land to scope the regenerative work before committing capital.
First visit
The foundations are present and the upside is real, but sequencing the work well is what realises it.
Confirm on the ground · Read the water, soil, and cover on the ground, then plan the work from the most permanent layer down.

Questions to sit with

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

Talk it through with us

This reading is built from satellite and open data. It cannot see soil biology, legal tenure, or what you already know from walking the land — a 30-minute call tests the reading against the ground and sequences the work. No cost, no obligation.

Schedule a 30-min call →See services or email us

Sources & method · 9 layers→

Water, roads & protected areas — OpenStreetMap

Overpass (waterways, highways, places, protected areas)

vector · live

ODbL 1.0

Biodiversity — GBIF

Occurrence records (count + top species)

point · live

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

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

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: Sentinel-2, the radar, the governance record, the thermal read — the affected pillars were reweighted, not guessed.

Generated Thu, 02 Jul 2026 21:55:03 GMT · 7.3s · synthesized by TERRA.