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C-DRONE GUIDE · 28 JULY 2026

Reforestation monitoring by drone: survival rate, game damage, price

France's forests are being replanted at an unprecedented pace: health-related diebacks, salvage cuts — bark beetles first among them — and public renewal policies have put tens of thousands of hectares into regeneration. Yet planting is only the start: between first-year drought, game, competing vegetation and planting defects, the survival rate makes or breaks the operation — and conditions the payment of aid as well as the credibility of carbon projects, which require documented monitoring. Counting thirty-centimetre seedlings across twenty hectares on foot is painstaking work; the drone does it in a morning, seedling by seedling. Here are the method, the sensors and prices observed in 2026.

Published on 28 July 2026, reviewed on 5 August 2026 — regulations in force as of August 2026.

Why survival rate has become a contractual issue

French public forest-renewal schemes and private financing — including projects under the national low-carbon label — share one trait: they condition all or part of payments on the actual success of the plantation, verified several years after the works. Owner, manager and planting contractor therefore need the same figure, established jointly: how many live seedlings per hectare, where the failure zones are, and why.

Traditional sample-plot counting remains the regulatory reference, but it extrapolates: on heterogeneous plots — and crisis plots almost always are — the sample can miss the frost hollow or the sector raided by game. The drone produces an exhaustive census that locates every gap. The two approaches complement each other: plots for compliance with specifications, the drone for the complete map that says where to replant. Photogrammetry also serves upstream, preparing the inventories and health diagnostics that trigger renewal.

Counting 30 cm seedlings: method and season

Detecting a young seedling in vegetation requires flying low, at roughly one centimetre per pixel, and choosing the phenological window: for broadleaves, early spring or late autumn, when the seedling stands out from the herb layer; for conifers, winter, when persistent green contrasts with dry vegetation. On these images, seedlings are detected and counted automatically along the planting lines, and every empty position becomes a mapped gap.

The reliability of this approach is documented: a study by Tristan Goodbody, Nicholas Coops and co-authors, published in 2018 in the International Journal of Remote Sensing, assessed drone photogrammetry for characterising the regeneration status of forest blocks, including the detection of young conifer stems (see the study on Google Scholar). Subsequent campaigns also measure heights: annual growth by zone objectifies the effect of site conditions and protections, and feeds the stock models of forest carbon projects.

Diagnosing failures: game, drought, competition

The count says how many; the map says why. Gaps aligned along an edge point to browsing — roe deer first — and cross-check with the state of protections, visible one by one on the images: flattened sleeves, torn-off guards. Failures clustered at the bottom of a slope suggest frost or waterlogging; diffuse mortality across a dry hillside, the planting summer's drought; live seedlings drowning under bracken or bramble, a clearing operation to schedule urgently — late-summer imagery reveals that competition better than any visit.

This spatialised diagnosis steers decisions to the hectare: replant or not, change species on the station that killed the seedlings, reinforce protections along the deer edge, trigger clearings at the right time. On burnt plots, monitoring joins the logic of our post-fire guide: the same provider follows the site from the disaster to the successful replanting.

Regulations: flying over forest, simply

Regenerating plots are almost always in open rural areas: open-category flight, within sight, with no particular filing in most cases. The checks remain those of any professional flight — aeronautical chart (low-altitude military zones, frequent over forest regions), environmental restrictions where relevant: some forests fall under protection zones where the rules we describe for mountains and natural parks apply. In periods of high fire risk, prefectoral orders can suspend flights: summer campaigns are planned accordingly.

One useful coordination point: informing the forest manager and local hunters, especially for autumn-winter flights — courtesy avoids misunderstandings, and the data often interests both parties, since cull plans are directly tied to the damage recorded on the plantation.

Prices observed in 2026

Ranges observed in 2026 (excl. VAT):

Set against the cost of an unplanned replanting — or aid suspended for lack of evidence — aerial monitoring pays for itself from the first campaign. Request a quote stating area, species, planting year and financing scheme.

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