Given the large fraction of global land occupied by forests and their importance to mitigate climate change, it is still surprising how little we know about their dynamics, capacity to store CO2 and biodiversity. The need is more crucial at the start of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and particularly timely considering country commitments to mitigate climate change under REDD+ and the Paris Agreement via their Nationally Determined Contributions. Recent global biodiversity assessments by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), documenting impacts of biodiversity on the Aichi Biodiversity targets, also point towards the need to closely monitor forests in the future. In a world increasingly in danger of crossing environmental tipping points, it is imperative for researchers and government institutions to openly share their forest data to produce worldwide benefits.

Today, the National Forest Monitoring Team of FAO in collaboration with Purdue University released a scientific publication calling all interested parties to participate in initiatives aiming to boost transparency in forest data. Published in the Springer-Nature journal Scientific Data, The paper “The importance of sharing global forest data in a world of crises”, highlights the relevance of open data sharing, focusing on the strengths of “integrated approaches to achieve sustainable data openness” that must “involve legal assurances, shared ethics, innovative funding schemes and capacity development”.

Existing research-focused platforms, such as the Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative, already lead researchers into the first two of these four principles with a bottom-up approach, opening databases following the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles for data management. Meanwhile, new intergovernmental research initiatives, such as the EU Commission’s Open Research EU are providing public budgets for open publishing. Yet, the third and fourth principles seem to be the ones most dependent on top-down approaches, led mostly by intergovernmental organizations such as FAO.

From open research to government transparency

Robust and transparent National Forest Monitoring Systems have been an integral part of the policies behind implementation activities across many countries participating in REDD+, but their importance extends beyond purely climate-focused actions. Under the overall Global Environment Facility (GEF) umbrella, FAO is currently supporting countries to increase transparency while increasing global capacity in the forest sector through the "Building global capacity to increase transparency in the forest sector (CBIT-Forest)”. The project aims to strengthen institutional and technical capacities of developing countries on forest-related data collection, analysis and dissemination processes under the Paris Agreement.  Through its Food and Agriculture Microdata Catalogue (FAM), FAO’s main corporate repository for microdata, the project aims to encourage governmental institutions in countries to support the international community of scientists, as well as other governments, to share their forest data openly to improve our common knowledge of forests worldwide and incentivise collaboration across borders.

Only through global action and open partnership can we provide the data, tools, and actions to fulfill the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and many of the climate and biodiversity targets we have set out to achieve.

Related links

• Building global capacity to increase transparency in the forest sector (CBIT-Forest)
• Poster “Boosting transparency of forest data for climate action”
• Elearning course “Forests and transparency under the Paris Agreement”
• Open, transparent and accessible: CBIT-Forest webinars in 2020

For further information, please contact Javier G. P. Gamarra, National Forest Inventory Analyst ([email protected]) or Rocío Cóndor ([email protected]), National Forest Monitoring Team, Forestry Division, FAO.

Click for more