The degradation of forests has serious implications that include accelerating biodiversity loss and climate change. These implications concern local, regional and global levels. Managing forest in a sustainable way is therefore a key challenge.

Forest monitoring services building on data coming from earth observation satellites and in-situ sensors address the following domains:

• Climatic changes (e.g. national greenhouse gas reporting, carbon stock statistics)
• Sustainable forest management (e.g. Clear Cut mapping and monitoring service)
• Nature protection (e.g. Land Cover and Forest Indicator Service)

The policies and protocols supported by forest monitoring services are:

• Kyoto protocol
• UN Framework Convention on Climate Changes
• UN Convention on Biological Diversity
• EU Forest Focus Regulation

More information is available on the GSE Forest Monitoring website