Forest restoration helps an ecosystem regain its ecological functions and in enhancing human well-being. Raising new tree plantations in degraded forest lands contributes significantly to forest restoration. Successful plantations help to achieve a land degradation neutral landscape, a thrust area of the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals. Establishing plantations followed by subsequent monitoring and evaluation is a regular activity of most forest departments. How do we design an effective evaluation of large plantation projects? Which are the evaluation frameworks, methods and tools we can build on? Out of the total plantation sites, how many to evaluate to get an accurate picture of the total plantation project? What parameters are critical to assess the performance of these plantations? How to construct a composite success score by combining the individual performance parameters? The case examines these questions in a real-life scenario and provides an understanding of the frameworks, methods and statistical tools available and their usage.