Technology should support, not sideline, locally driven conservation and restoration monitoring

Leland K Werden , Sara Löfqvist, Giacomo Delgado, Spencer Schubert, Karen D. Holl, Carolina Bello, Jayden Engert, Elodie Adam, Matilde Bragadini, Pablo Cantón, Daria Lipsky, Florian L Vetsch, Ruth E Bennett, Cole J.P. Seither, Hubert Szczygiel, Daisy H. Dent

The choice of how to monitor conservation and restoration is not solely technical - it shapes which outcomes are valued, whose priorities define success, where resources flow, and who benefits. The shift toward tech-based monitoring, driven by demand for scalable metrics, risks incomplete ecological understanding, sidelining Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) from data ownership and decision-making. In a novel analysis of survey data from 130 reforestation organizations, we find that remote-sensing adoption has risen over time specifically among market-based organizations, which cite it nearly 50% more often than mission-based ones - a gap that appears to be widening over two decades. Adoption is outpacing the evidence that tech-based methods are cheaper or more accurate than traditional ground-based approaches. We offer targeted recommendations for researchers & research institutions, policymakers, and project developers & standards bodies to keep monitoring locally led, ecologically grounded, and economically just, and we propose auditable indicators for evaluating progress toward these goals. As conservation and restoration scale, how progress is measured shapes whether efforts deliver lasting ecological gains and benefits for IPLCs, outcomes technology alone cannot capture.