CAMPA Afforestation Monitoring in India: Compensatory Plantation Evidence

Compensatory afforestation is planted because forest land was diverted. A monitoring visit, public audit, or National Green Tribunal question later asks where the plantation is, and whether it survived. Forest department and CAMPA teams, user agencies, and planting agencies or NGOs often cannot answer from one geo-tagged record.

This guide is for those teams evaluating CAMPA afforestation monitoring. It covers compensatory plantations raised against diverted forest land under the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016, maps the work to Plant → Track → Report, and shows how Aranyix fits as programme MRV beside statutory portals and filings.

Takeaways

• Buy for geo-tagged CA blocks, a survival cadence, and an export pack a monitoring or audit team can sample.
• Separate facts (GPS or polygon, photos, alive/dead/replaced) from estimates (modeled CO₂e).
• Tie every resurvey to the same diversion, CA site, and implementing-agency record.
• Start with a bounded 90-day pilot on one CA block or division before a wider roll-out.
• Aranyix is audit-prep MRV. It complements State CAMPA filings and does not issue credits.

The buyer problem: the plantation exists on paper until someone asks for the point

Mining, infrastructure, and linear-project user agencies divert forest land under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 and carry a compensatory afforestation obligation. The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016 provides for the monies collected from those agencies and for authorities — national, and in each State and Union territory — to administer the funds. State CAMPA authorities apply the state fund to plantations and related forestry works. After planting, the file is often a diversion note, a journal, phone photos, and a polygon nobody has walked.

Teams searching for compensatory afforestation monitoring India meet that gap when concurrent monitoring, audit, or a court or NGT question arrives. Staff rebuild CAMPA geo-tagged plantation evidence from PDFs, and survival after summer and monsoon is a narrative rather than a resurvey. The 2016 Act records the need for independent concurrent monitoring and evaluation. A field record helps show the work. It does not replace the statutory filing.

A mine diversion can reuse the location-and-survival habit already used for environmental-clearance green belts, kept on a separate CA tag. See mine green belt plantation monitoring and plantation MRV software India. Other programmes are on the solutions hub.

Plant — register the CA block before the planting day becomes a memory

Plant is registration of the compensatory site, not the season-end count.

1. Map the CA polygon or block to the diverted-forest reference and the land identified for afforestation, on or before planting day.
2. Capture GPS or a polygon, species, photos, density notes, planting year, and the programme tag — compensatory afforestation, or assisted natural regeneration only where that was approved.
3. Assign a digital ID so resurveys attach to the same block.
4. Link the user agency, implementing agency or NGO, nursery, and work order to that diversion and CA site code.

Offline Android capture covers range and NGO crews without signal; the web view is for division and state CAMPA review. Without clean Plant data, Track and Report name a site no one can stand on. Keep a nearby CSR plantation day on its own tag. See geo-tagged tree plantation for CSR.

Track — CAMPA plantation survival tracking on a cadence reviewers expect

Track is a repeat visit with a status. CAMPA plantation survival tracking is that visit, tied back to the same block.

Interval	Typical purpose
0–30 days	Fix mis-tags and boundary gaps; freeze the baseline CA registry
3 months	First mortality signal; replacement while the season is still open
6 months	Summer or monsoon stress check on the block
12 months	Annual monitoring, audit, and scheme-review anchor

Crews record alive / stressed / dead / replaced, with a photo when status changes. Managers roll survival by CA site, division, user agency, implementing agency, and year. Optional NDVI and SAR layers only choose which blocks to walk. They do not replace ground truth for an audit or NGT sample. Put resurvey ownership in the work order. The same loop is in plantation MRV software India.

How those alive, dead, and replaced counts become a percentage — surviving saplings divided by saplings planted, for the same block and cohort — is in the tree survival rate formula for Indian plantations.

Report — what the export pack contains

Report is the PDF / XLSX pack a monitoring meeting, an audit sample, or a court or NGT file can open without a rebuild. The export pack contains:

• CA site or tree IDs, GPS or polygon, species, planting year, and the diversion or CA land reference
• User agency and implementing agency or NGO on the same row
• Survival snapshot for the window, including replacements
• Photo references tied to the visit, not an undated album
• Methodology notes: GPS accuracy, how mortality and replacement are defined, and who resurveyed
• Limitations: blocks not yet resurveyed, and modeled CO₂e labeled as an estimate only

That pack is compensatory afforestation MRV. Carry it into statutory portals and filings, including geo-tagged records on e-Green Watch. Aranyix does not submit those filings or replace the portals. See CAMPA afforestation. Keep modeled carbon and any Green Credit line out of the survival table.

How to prepare the plantation-boundary polygon the forest department uploads is in the e-Green Watch KML guide for CAMPA plantation polygons.

How Aranyix fits for CAMPA afforestation monitoring

Aranyix is a digital plantation MRV platform: geo-tagged registration, survival workflows, optional satellite health fusion, and structured exports. See the plantation MRV product page.

State CAMPA teams use it for division-wise survival evidence beside official filings. User agencies use it to show the compensatory block can be sampled. Implementing agencies and NGOs use it so the resurvey still stands after the planting season.

Most teams start with a 90-day Plant → Track → Report pilot on one CA block, division, or linear stretch, then expand once monitoring can sample the export.

Important — honesty box
Aranyix provides plantation MRV, audit-prep evidence, and modeled estimates only. We do not issue Verra, Gold Standard, or other registry credits. We do not issue Green Credits. Aranyix is not a certification body and not a registry. CAMPA filings and any credit pathway remain with your organisation and the competent authority.