Prospera Development Foundation

Environmental Measurement Lab

The Environmental Measurement Lab develops open, reproducible methods for measuring conservation outcomes on tropical working lands. We work where conservation claims have to survive scrutiny — from buyers, lenders, and regulators — and we publish the methods that let anyone check the answer.

Method
Satellite and drone remote sensing, field plots, causal inference
Geography
Colombia, the Chocó-Darién, and the Amazon basin
Outputs
Working papers, open datasets, open code
Research Lines
01Active

Shade cover and forest retention in coffee agroforestry

How much tree cover do agroforestry coffee farms actually retain, and can it be measured precisely enough for a buyer or a lender to underwrite?

Methods
Canopy-height models validated against ground plots on member farms of Selvitas supplier cooperatives
Data
Sentinel-2, Planet, field plots
Output
A verifiable, reproducible canopy metric. The same pipeline monitors compliance plantings under Colombia's Ley 2173.
02Active

Additionality in payments for ecosystem services

Do PES enrollments change land cover relative to what would have happened anyway?

Methods
Difference-in-differences and synthetic control on enrolled versus matched non-enrolled parcels
Data
Satellite land-cover time series
Output
Working paper and open code
03In development

Drought and fire exposure in the Amazon ahead of El Niño 2026–27

Can territory-level drought and fire exposure be indexed early enough to trigger contingent finance before a fire season rather than after it?

Methods
Territory-level index construction from reanalysis and burned-area products
Data
Reanalysis precipitation and soil moisture, MODIS/VIIRS burned area, ESA degradation indicators
Output
An open data product, published on a rolling basis
04In development

Jaguar corridor connectivity in the Chocó-Darién

Where are the corridors that still connect jaguar populations across the Chocó-Darién, and what threatens them first?

Methods
Species distribution models and circuit-theory connectivity analysis, with camera-trap image classification where partners share data
Data
Land cover, road networks, camera-trap imagery
Output
Connectivity maps and a methods paper. Companion science to Expedición Jaguar.
05In development

Independent baselines for Colombian forest-carbon projects

Do the baselines underlying Colombian REDD+ projects hold up when they are reproduced from public data?

Methods
Independent reconstruction of project baselines; tests of leakage and permanence assumptions
Data
Public project documentation and satellite land-cover records
Output
Audit notes and reproducible code, published openly

Work With the Lab

We share data and code, and we are interested in partners with field presence, imagery access, or questions that need an independent answer.

info@prosperafundacion.org