Concerns about institutional carbon emissions are increasing, driven by the need for transparency in reporting and mitigation of commitments. The Paris Agreement on Climate Change has prompted some countries to enforce institutional reporting of carbon emissions and mitigation actions. Emitters can mitigate their emissions by adopting low-emission technologies or investing in offsetting programs. In 2022, the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Programme invested in a carbon offsetting program involving tree planting on Mulanje Mountain. This study, we expanded our remote sensing project on mapping plastic waste accumulating in the environment to aid monitoring of these trees and estimating their carbon storage potential. We conducted field surveys using transects to assess tree survival, collecting data with KoboCollect. Field-level pictures of the transects were captured to aid in the identification of vegetation species, which is being conducted by a professional ecologist. Drone images of the planted trees were collected using a DJI Mavic 3M, capturing both optical and multispectral reflectance (infrared and near-infrared). The images were processed with OpenDroneMap to produce a seamless orthomosaic map and a 3-D model of the planting plot. We are training an automatic classifier to identify the planted trees and invasive species from the drone imagery. Field-based monitoring revealed 73 planting stations, with 39 stations having surviving trees, representing a 54% survival rate. The monitored vegetation included grown trees, shrubs, pine trees, weeds, grass, and other invasive species. Drone images from two sites have been processed, and efforts are underway to annotate the data to identify tree planting stations and surviving cedar trees to quantify tree survival. The ongoing study has the potential to enhance the transparency of offsetting programs, particularly tree-planting campaigns. Once the classification model is finalized, it will improve field-based tree monitoring, providing rapid insights into tree survival and facilitating appropriate compensation or replacement actions. Future efforts will focus on estimating the carbon storage potential of the trees.