The Layers of Running a Nature Project, and Which Tool Covers Each
Map sites, track deployments, plan field visits, store data, compare specialist results with your goals and tie spend to the work.
Most software in our field solves one piece of a nature project. A form app captures surveys. A lab returns eDNA results. A sound model finds birds. A spreadsheet tracks the budget. Each does its piece well. The project lives in the gaps between them, and someone in the office stitches it back together every week.
I've started to think of a nature project as rings around its own goal and methodology: places, work, data, results, money, and the questions that improve the next season. Specialist tools go deep on one ring. Restoration Scope, the operations software we build for restoration and carbon teams, starts from the operations view and connects the rings. Here is each ring, with biodiversity monitoring as the example.
- At the centre: Your goal and methodology
- Places: specialist tools go deepest here, such as QGIS
- Work: no specialist tool shown
- Data: specialist tools go deepest here, such as KoboToolbox
- Results: specialist tools go deepest here, such as Okala, NatureMetrics, BirdNET
- Money: specialist tools go deepest here, such as Google Sheets
- Questions: no specialist tool shown
- Restoration Scope connects every ring
Places: where is every site, plot and station?
Say a programme runs sound recorders, camera traps and insect traps across three projects. Where is each one, and which site does it belong to?
Usually the answer is spread over a form export, a GIS file on one laptop and a spreadsheet tab. Seeing them all on one map takes work, so a station recorded outside its site boundary can go unnoticed.
We put every site, plot and station, across every project, on one map, nested the way the team already works, for example programme, project, site and station. It's the second level of the hierarchy of data needs, and it's where everything else gets its address.
Every project on one map.
Acción Andina's programme totals, then each project beside a map of the projects along the Andes. Public partner portal.
See how maps and site boundaries work in Restoration Scope.
Work: who goes where, and when?
Recorders get deployed and their cards collected. Who is going to which station this week? When was each one last visited?
This part rarely has a tool. It lives in WhatsApp threads and in one coordinator's head, and the office keeps asking the field: did you do this?
We set up the work your project actually runs. For Mothbox insect traps, each deployment records the device, site, location, date, crew and when it was collected. For a reforestation project, planting, maintenance and field inspections sit on a timeline, each assigned to a person. Field teams record visits in our offline field app, on the same records.
Data: where does it all end up?
Survey forms, photos, shapefiles, drone flights, results files. Where are they kept, and can you find the one from that station in March?
Each tool keeps its own copy. The rest sit in shared drives in folders named by whoever uploaded them.
Field data can come from our field app or from the form app a team already uses. Ours works better for day-to-day operations. A survey is filled on the record it belongs to: a field inspection opened from the property it inspects is already tied to that property, with no ID to type and match later. Each save reaches the project as soon as the phone has signal, and the checks set up for the project run on it.
If a team keeps KoboToolbox, we connect it. One Acre Fund keeps KoboToolbox for its field surveys; we pick up new submissions within the hour once a phone has uploaded them, so the team sees what needs correcting during the season, not at the end of it. We connect Google Sheets and Airtable too, and set up each project so its photos, drone imagery and shapefile boundaries land on the record and map they belong to. See the data connections we set up, and our KoboToolbox alternatives guide for when a different form app fits better.
Results: do they show the project is on track?
The eDNA lab returns a species list. The acoustic model returns detections. Do they show the project is moving toward what it set out to do?
Results arrive as one file per method, detached from the site and visit they came from, and from the targets in the project's own plan.
We don't identify species, and we never define a methodology; we work with the one the project has. We import the results file a specialist returns and tie it to the site and visit it came from: for Mothbox, each night's identifications sit under the deployment that caught them. Your specialists judge what the results mean. Other results files are scoped with each team; we have no ready connector for NatureMetrics or Okala. Our biodiversity monitoring software guide compares the specialist tools, and biodiversity projects shows how we fit around them.
Money: what did the work cost?
What did the planting and maintenance work cost per hectare, and which properties cost the most?
Expenses live in the finance spreadsheet. Hectares live in the map. Joining them is manual work, so it often waits for the annual report.
Connect the expense spreadsheet the team already keeps. Ponterra keeps the expenses for its Mexico project in a spreadsheet; we sync it to the properties the money was spent on. The team sees what area-based work cost per hectare and what each property cost in total, with spend that isn't tied to an area counted separately.
Questions: what should change next season?
Which field officer's farm boundaries overlap a neighbour's? Which properties cost most per hectare? Which stations had no deployment this season?
When each question takes hours of spreadsheet work, it often doesn't get asked.
With the rings connected, we set up the dashboards, quality checks and saved views that answer them. The checks flag missing, inconsistent or overlapping boundaries. Where restoration records live walks through what each kind of system makes possible.
A check that flags overlapping boundaries.
Two farm boundaries overlap and the shared area is marked on the map. Illustrative example: the farms and boundaries are made up.
Where specialists fit
KoboToolbox collects survey data online or offline on any device (checked October 28, 2026). If your forms work, you can keep them and we connect what they send, though capturing in our app works better day to day.
Okala and
NatureMetrics bring the science. Okala combines field surveys, bioacoustics, camera traps and eDNA, led by PhD ecologists. NatureMetrics runs its own eDNA lab and returns results in its Nature Intelligence Platform (both checked October 28, 2026). Keep them too. Their work reaches across several rings; we sit around them and connect what they return to the rest of the project.
And not every team needs us. A small team with one site and one form may be fine with KoboToolbox and a spreadsheet. The gaps between tools grow with more sites, more crews, more partners and more methods.
What setup involves
Most of this is configured for each project, not switched on. We start from the records, forms and spreadsheets you already have, and you tell us how your sites, visits and costs fit together. A project that records with our app can be running in a day to a week. Connecting several existing tools takes longer, and we scope it with you first. Staff hours, equipment servicing logs and a chat assistant for your data aren't part of it.
The rings widen
A first season may only need places and data. As sites, crews, funders and methods add up, the outer rings start to matter.
What works for a team should stay. The job is to connect it, so the next season starts from what this one taught.
Disclosure: Restoration Scope makes operations software for restoration and carbon projects. We don't identify species or define methodologies, and none of the specialists named here paid to be mentioned.
Frequently asked questions
What software do I need to run a restoration or carbon project?
Usually several tools. A form app such as KoboToolbox for surveys, specialists such as NatureMetrics or Okala for biodiversity results, a GIS for maps and a spreadsheet for the budget. Then something that ties them to the same sites, visits and goals, which is the job Restoration Scope does. It can run the surveys too.
We use KoboToolbox. What else do we need?
Somewhere its submissions meet everything else. Kobo collects points, lines and boundaries, and its built-in map shows submissions as points. Tying those submissions to your sites, visits, lab results and spend takes another system. You can keep the forms and connect what they send, or we rebuild your Kobo forms in Restoration Scope during setup, which works better day to day. Each survey is filled on the record it belongs to and reaches the project as soon as the phone has signal.
Does Restoration Scope identify species or define a monitoring methodology?
No. We work with the methodology a project already has, and import the results files specialists return, such as Mothbox's insect identifications, tied to the site and visit they came from.
Does a small project need all of this?
Often not. A team with one site and one form may be fine with KoboToolbox and a spreadsheet. The gaps between tools grow with more sites, crews, partners and methods.
Another question? Email us or book a call.
