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Introduction The use of drones in environment and health research is a relatively new phenomenon. A principal research activity drones are used for is environmental monitoring, which can raise concerns in local communities. Existing ethical guidance for researchers is often not specific to drone technology and practices vary between research settings. Therefore, this scoping review aims to gather the evidence available on ethical considerations surrounding drone use as perceived by local communities, ethical considerations reported on by researchers implementing drone research, and published ethical guidance related to drone deployment. Methods and analysis This scoping review will follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR) and the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) guidelines. The literature search will be conducted using academic databases and grey literature sources. After pilot testing the inclusion criteria and data extraction tool, two researchers will double-screen and then chart available evidence independently. A content analysis will be carried out to identify patterns of categories or terms used to describe ethical considerations related to drone usage for environmental monitoring in the literature using the R Package RQDA. Discrepancies in any phase of the project will be solved through consensus between the two reviewers. If consensus cannot be reached, a third arbitrator will be consulted. Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval is not required; only secondary data will be used. This protocol is registered on the Open Science Framework (osf.io/a78et). The results will be disseminated through publication in a scientific journal and will be used to inform drone field campaigns in the Wellcome Trust funded HARMONIZE project. HARMONIZE aims to develop cost-effective and reproducible digital infrastructure for stakeholders in climate change hotspots in Latin America & the Caribbean a, RL is the principal investigator of the Wellcome Trust (https://wellcome.org/) funded HARMONIZE project. The project award reference is 224694/Z/21/Z. The funders had no role in the study design., Peer Reviewed, "Article signat per 12 autors/es: Remy Hoek Spaans, Bruna Drumond, Kim Robin van Daalen, Ana Claudia Rorato Vitor, Alison Derbyshire, Adriano Da Silva, Raquel Martins Lana, Mauricio Santos Vega ,Gabriel Carrasco-Escobar, Maria Isabel Sobral Escada, Claudia Codeço, Rachel Lowe", Postprint (published version)