Open Foris is an initiative that provides free and open-source solutions for forest and land monitoring. Developed with the belief that innovative, accurate, and transparent forest monitoring can unlock the potential of forests for climate action and other benefits. It is a transformative accelerator working towards digital public goods offered by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), making cutting-edge forest monitoring capabilities widely accessible.
Open Foris addresses pressing global environmental challenges, including widespread deforestation, the urgent need to mitigate climate change, and the imperative for sustainable resource management and production. Its foundational principle is being free and open-source, which ensures the long-term sustainability of monitoring capacities by sharing solutions, documentation, and source code, fostering self-sufficiency, transparency, and eliminating vendor dependence. This approach also provides a cost-effective way to monitor forest cover and other critical land types.
Check out Open Foris In-Action and the Interactive Webstory
Free and Open-Source Nature
Open Foris is fundamentally a free and open-source initiative. This characteristic provides several key advantages.
It makes advanced forest and land monitoring capabilities accessible to everyone, everywhere, ensuring that financial constraints do not impede access to essential monitoring solutions.
Comprehensive and Versatile Suite of Solutions Covering the Entire Monitoring Workflow
Open Foris offers a portfolio of powerful yet user-friendly platforms and solutions, each designed to address specific aspects of forest and land monitoring, enabling the generation of actionable insights.
Proven Track Record and Significant Impact in Supporting Global Forestry Initiatives and International Reporting
Open Foris has demonstrated widespread adoption and significant impact across numerous countries
Integrated Solutions &
Risk Assessment
Practical Applications
National Forest Inventory and In-situ data collection
The Open Foris Initiative supports National Forest Inventories and Monitoring by providing open-source solutions such as Arena and Arena Mobile that enable countries to collect, manage, and analyse forest data with accuracy, transparency, and efficiency.
Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) for Environmental Integrity
Open Foris is specifically designed to facilitate MRV with Environmental Integrity.
A significant testament to this is that 91% of forest submissions from 65 countries to the UNFCCC have utilised Open Foris solutions, highlighting its important role in global climate reporting and MRV since 2014 to the present day.
Deforestation-Free Supply Chains
Open Foris develops open-source solutions that tackle deforestation and promote sustainable commodity production by empowering smallholder farmers with solutions to support deforestation-free and transparent supply chains.
Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring
Open Foris provides innovative technical solutions advancing ecosystem restoration as a powerful nature-based solution.
The Framework for Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring (FERM) is a significant integrated solution provided by Open Foris, serving as a global platform for registering, monitoring, and sharing restoration efforts.
Mongolia advances forest data management through Open Foris Arena
Ulaanbaatar – Mongolia has taken a decisive step toward modernizing its forest monitoring system by advancing the digital management of its national forest inventory (NFI) through the Open Foris Arena platform developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). With technical support from FAO under the "Building global capacity to increase transparency in the forest sector" (CBIT-Forest)” global project, the National Forest Agency (NFA) and the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change are collaborating ... [read more →]
Cali, Colombia: New FAO forest monitoring solution supports Indigenous Peoples and smallholders
For Forest and Water Day, FAO launched a new Digital Public Good, Open Foris Whisp, which will help Indigenous Peoples and smallholder farmers produce forest monitoring information and support compliance with deforestation regulations. The open-source solution provides insights on different datasets from satellite-derived forest, land-use and tree-cover maps, ... [read more →]
Mexico strengthens communities' involvement in forest monitoring with Open Foris Arena
Mexico is reinforcing its forest monitoring capacities – a vital step for the nearly 12 million people, including 3.6 million Indigenous Peoples, who depend on forests for their livelihoods. In August 2024, FAO provided a dedicated training on Open Foris Arena, FAO’s open-source platform for field data collection and analysis and funded under the “AIM4Forests: Accelerating Innovative Monitoring for Forests” [read more →]
