Terms and Conditions

The Platform enables members of the public to explore a public register of trees, a species atlas, biodiversity maps and community events across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, and to contribute their own biodiversity records: mapping trees, recording flora and fauna observations with photographs and location, and following the growth journeys of tagged trees, typically reached by scanning a QR plaque. Verified contributions feed the Platform's Biodiversity Score, its single official measure of recorded biodiversity.

You may browse all public areas of the Platform without an account. To contribute records, photographs or observations, you must register and sign in using an email address and password or a Google account. You agree to provide accurate registration information and to keep it up to date.

The Platform is intended for users aged 18 years and above. If you are under 18, you may use the Platform only with the consent and under the supervision of a parent or legal guardian, or as part of a supervised school or institutional programme. By permitting a minor to use the Platform, the parent, guardian or supervising institution accepts these Terms on the minor's behalf.

You are solely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for all activity that occurs under your account. You shall notify us promptly at compliance@rpgf.in of any unauthorised use of your account. We reserve the right to refuse registration, and to suspend, restrict or terminate any account, at any time and without notice, including where these Terms are breached or where an account is used abusively.

"Contributions" means all content you submit to the Platform, including photographs, species identifications and guesses, location coordinates, measurements, dates, descriptions and notes.

You retain ownership of your Contributions. By submitting a Contribution, you grant RPGF a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual and transferable licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt (including compressing images, cropping and removing embedded metadata), publish, display, distribute and use your Contributions for the operation, promotion and improvement of the Platform and for RPGF's conservation, education and research purposes. You further agree that verified ecological observation data derived from your Contributions may be retained permanently in anonymised form as part of the scientific record, as described in our Privacy Policy.

By submitting a Contribution you represent and warrant that: the Contribution is your own original work or you hold all rights necessary to submit it; the photographs were taken by you; the Contribution does not infringe the rights of any third party, including intellectual property, privacy and publicity rights; and the information in it is, to the best of your knowledge, accurate and not deliberately false or misleading.

In line with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, you must not submit, host, display, upload, publish or share any Contribution or other content that: (a) belongs to another person and to which you have no right; (b) is obscene, pornographic, paedophilic, invasive of another's privacy including bodily privacy, insulting or harassing on the basis of gender, libellous, racially or ethnically objectionable, or encouraging money laundering or gambling, or is otherwise unlawful in any manner; (c) is harmful to children; (d) infringes any patent, trademark, copyright or other proprietary right; (e) deceives or misleads the addressee about the origin of the message, or knowingly and intentionally communicates any misinformation or information which is patently false and untrue or misleading in nature; (f) impersonates another person; (g) threatens the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states, or public order, or causes incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence, or prevents investigation of any offence, or is insulting to any other nation; (h) contains any software virus or other computer code, file or program designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer resource; or (i) violates any law for the time being in force.

In addition, you must not submit any Contribution that contains identifiable images of other people without their consent; that is deliberately fabricated, including false species records or manipulated locations; or that is irrelevant to the Platform's biodiversity purpose. We may remove non-compliant content and, where required, report it, and we will inform users periodically, at least once a year, of these requirements and of the consequences of non-compliance, which may include termination of access or removal of content.

All Contributions pass through a review process before publication. Nothing you submit is publicly visible until it has been approved by a reviewer appointed by RPGF, and additions to an existing tree's journey may additionally require approval by the user recorded as that tree's owner. Reviewers may approve a Contribution, reject it with a reason, hold it for clarification or correct its details, and all such actions are logged.

RPGF does not routinely monitor all activity on the Platform but reserves the right to do so. We may, at our sole discretion and without notice, edit, refuse, remove or unpublish any Contribution or other content, and may report to law enforcement authorities any actions that may be considered illegal, cooperating fully with any investigation of alleged illegal activity.

You agree that, in using the Platform, you shall not: use it for any unlawful purpose; submit false, fabricated or vandalising records; harass, abuse or impersonate any person; interfere with or disrupt the Platform, its servers or its security features; scrape, bulk-download or reverse engineer the Platform or its data other than through means we expressly provide; use another user's account; or attempt to derive the precise location of protected or sensitive species whose locations the Platform deliberately obscures.

The Platform encourages observation of nature, not interference with it. When recording observations you must comply with all applicable laws, must not trespass on private property, and must not damage, disturb, capture or remove any plant or animal in order to create a record.

Being recorded on the Platform as a "Tree Owner", adopter, custodian or steward of any tree or site is a designation within the Platform only. It confers no ownership, tenancy, easement or any other legal right or interest whatsoever over any tree, land or property, and creates no obligation on RPGF or any landowner. RPGF may reassign or withdraw any such designation at its discretion.

Although RPGF tries to ensure that all information on the Platform, including species profiles, identifications, maps and the Biodiversity Score ("Information"), is correct, RPGF does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the Information and makes no commitment to update or correct it. Species identifications reflect community submissions and reviewer verification and may nonetheless be incorrect. Automated identification suggestions generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence are aids only and are never a verification.

The Information is supplied on the condition that persons receiving it will make their own determination as to its suitability for their purposes before use. In particular, nothing on the Platform constitutes advice on whether any plant or animal is safe, edible, medicinal or lawful to handle, and you must not rely on the Platform for any such decision. Any use of the Platform or the Information is at your own risk.

To protect contributors and wildlife, the Platform reduces the precision of location data shown publicly, applies coarser masking to records of protected or sensitive species, and strips embedded GPS metadata from publicly served images. You must not attempt to circumvent these protections.

This Platform contains material, including text, graphics, photographs, software and data compilations, which is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights. All such rights are either owned by RPGF or licensed to RPGF by the owners of those rights, including reference images published under Creative Commons licences with the attribution displayed alongside them. The Wings & Roots name and logo, the nature:re name and logo, and other marks displayed on the Platform are trademarks of RPGF or its affiliates and shall not be used in connection with any product or service that is not RPGF's.

RPGF grants you a limited, personal, non-exclusive and non-transferable licence to access and use the Platform and to view and print materials for your personal, non-commercial use only. Except as expressly permitted, you shall not copy, distribute, download in bulk, display, perform, reproduce, modify, broadcast or otherwise use any material contained on the Platform, shall not remove any copyright, trademark or attribution notice, and shall not sell or incorporate any part of the Platform's material into any other work, publication or website without our express written consent. This limited licence terminates automatically, without notice, if you breach any of these Terms; upon termination you must destroy any downloaded or printed materials.

The Platform may display community events such as tree-planting drives and nature walks. Registration for events is handled on external third-party websites reached by links from the Platform; the Platform itself does not manage attendee lists or ticketing. Your participation in any event is at your own risk and subject to the terms and safety instructions of its organiser.

The Platform may be linked to other websites that are not under the control of, or maintained by, RPGF. Such links do not indicate any responsibility for, or endorsement of, the linked website. These links are provided only as a convenience, and it is your responsibility to decide whether any services, products or content available through them are suitable for your purposes. Any correspondence or dealings between you and any third party found on or through the Platform, including event organisers, advertisers or sponsors, are solely between you and that third party, and RPGF has no liability, obligation or responsibility for them.

THIS PLATFORM IS PROVIDED TO YOU ON AN "AS IS" AND "WHERE-IS" BASIS, WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY. RPGF, FOR ITSELF AND ANY THIRD PARTY PROVIDING MATERIALS, SERVICES OR CONTENT TO THIS PLATFORM, MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, STATUTORY OR OTHERWISE, OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT OF THIRD-PARTY RIGHTS, WITH RESPECT TO THE PLATFORM, THE INFORMATION OR ANY PRODUCTS OR SERVICES TO WHICH THE INFORMATION REFERS. RPGF WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTY FOR ANY DAMAGES OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, ARISING FROM OR CONNECTED WITH THE PLATFORM, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO YOUR USE OF THE PLATFORM OR YOUR INABILITY TO USE IT, EVEN IF RPGF HAS PREVIOUSLY BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

Neither RPGF, its affiliates, nor their respective officers, directors, employees or agents shall be liable for any loss, damage or expense arising out of any access to, use of, or reliance upon, this Platform or the Information, or any website linked to this Platform.

By accepting these Terms, you agree that you shall defend, indemnify and hold RPGF, its affiliates, its licensors, and each of their officers, directors, other users, employees, attorneys and agents harmless from and against any and all claims, costs, damages, losses, liabilities and expenses (including attorneys' fees and costs) arising out of or in connection with: (a) your violation or breach of any of these Terms or any applicable law or regulation, whether or not referenced herein; (b) your violation of any rights of any third party; (c) your Contributions; or (d) your use or misuse of the Platform, including any use of the Platform by any person using your username and password.

RPGF controls and operates this Platform from India and makes no representation that the materials are appropriate or available for use in other locations. If you use this Platform from outside India, you are entirely responsible for compliance with all applicable local laws.

RPGF may change these Terms from time to time. By continuing to use the Platform you accept that you are bound by the Terms as current at the time of use, and you should check them each time you revisit the Platform. RPGF may change the format and content of the Platform at any time and may suspend its operation for support or maintenance work, to update content or for any other reason. RPGF reserves the right to terminate access to this Platform at any time and without notice.

Personal details provided to RPGF through this Platform will only be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy, which is available on the Platform. Please read it carefully before proceeding. By providing your personal details to us you are consenting to their use in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

These Terms are governed by and are to be interpreted in accordance with the laws of India, without regard to the choice or conflicts of law provisions of any jurisdiction. You agree, in the event of any dispute arising in relation to these Terms or to the Platform, whether in contract, tort or otherwise, to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located at Mumbai, India.

If you have a question or complaint regarding the Platform or these Terms, please contact us at compliance@rpgf.in.

In accordance with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, the Grievance Officer for the Platform is: [Name of Grievance Officer], Grievance Officer, RPG Foundation (Wings & Roots, nature:re initiative), Mumbai, India, email: compliance@rpgf.in. The Grievance Officer shall acknowledge any complaint within 24 hours and dispose of it within 15 days of its receipt.

RPGF reserves all other rights.