Aamcho CFR Mapping
About the APP
Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) is a globally recognised non-profit organisation focused on environmental conservation and sustainable, socially just development. ATREE engages in the generation and dissemination of rigorous interdisciplinary knowledge that informs and is informed by the needs of grassroots communities, policymakers and the wider public. Its head office is in Bengaluru. ATREE’s Forests, Governance and Livelihoods programme engages in interdisciplinary research, action and policy outreach for community livelihood enhancement, as well as promoting cultural well-being, ensuring forest sustainability and strengthening of democratic and equitable forest governance. The Community Forest Resource (CFR) rights initiative is a part of this programme where our mission is to empower forest-dependent communities in India by facilitating the recognition and protection of their forest rights through research, participatory action, capacity-building, and community-informed open technologies. We concentrate on regions with high forest cover and significant tribal populations, including Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Odisha, and Telangana. Guided by the transformative provisions of the Forest Rights Act (2006), particularly the Community Forest Resource (CFR) rights, we aim to enable local communities to take leadership in forest governance, sustainable management, and biodiversity conservation by providing them with capacity building training workshops and access to tools, techniques and data.
The Aamcho CFR mapping app is a part of this initiative. As per the CFR provisions of the Forest Rights Act (2006) the traditional community forest area is to be mapped. For mapping this area the local tribal and forest dependent communities and staff of Civil Society Organizations have to rely on expensive GPS units. Additionally, after mapping, the geographic data is often not accessible by the local communities or is lost. Hence the Aamcho CFR mapping app was developed with a purpose to ensure free accessibility to GPS tracking tools for anybody with a mobile device.
Click here to download.
Privacy Policy
At ATREE, we are committed to respecting and protecting your privacy.
Our privacy policy is as follows:
- The Aamcho App does not collect personal information, and you do not need to sign up or create an account to use it. It does not send any data to ATREE or to any external server. All mapping data, including GPS tracks (polygons), is stored only on your device.
- You can choose to share or export GPS tracks using your phone’s file-sharing options, but the app does not send or upload anything on its own.
- The app requires location access, including background location, to accurately map CFR areas even when the screen is off. This only happens when you start a mapping session. You can disable this permission at any time in your phone settings.
- Your location data is never sent to ATREE or any third party.
- The app allows you to take screenshots of the GPS track you create. These images are saved directly to your phone and are not accessed or stored by ATREE. As screenshots may contain sensitive or identifiable data, we encourage users to share them with care.
- The app uses background map services from Google Maps, a free and open-source platform. Google Maps may collect general technical information such as your IP address, device type, and approximate location to help map tiles load efficiently. It does not track your activity within the Aamcho App. Please read the Google Maps Privacy Policy for more information.
- The app does not include any analytics or tracking tools. It does not record your location history, app usage, or behavior.
- This tool is provided to assist communities in mapping CFR areas under the Forest Rights Act. However, using the app does not guarantee that a CFR claim will be approved. Users are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the data they collect. ATREE is not responsible for how this data is used or for the outcome of any legal or administrative processes related to CFR claims.
- This privacy policy may be updated in the future if the app’s features change or if required by changes in law. For questions or concerns, please contact us at cfr@atree.org.
