Bangkok, March 27 : The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has unveiled the National Forest Inventory (NFI) Learning Journey at a regional workshop in Bangkok, Thailand, aimed at enhancing forest data across Asia and the Pacific.
The initiative is designed to support FAO Member Nations in planning, implementing, and analyzing their national forest inventories, which play a pivotal role in addressing climate change and ensuring sustainable forest management.
Forests in Asia and the Pacific region span 740 million hectares, representing 18 percent of the world’s forest cover. They are crucial not only for the livelihoods of over 450 million people but also for global economic activity, with annual trade in primary forest products surpassing USD 90 billion. However, as natural resources face increasing pressures, accurate forest data has never been more essential to shape sustainable policies and guide climate action.
FAO’s National Forest Inventory Learning Journey offers a self-paced learning platform designed to equip forestry professionals, government agencies, and researchers with the tools needed to improve national forest data systems. The initiative provides ongoing access to resources and methodologies to strengthen national forest monitoring systems and capacities.
“Forests are the lungs of our planet. Accurate, accessible, and transparent forest data tailored to national frameworks allow countries to monitor ecosystems, track progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and meet their nationally determined contributions (NDCs),” said Robert Simpson, Deputy Regional Representative for FAO’s Asia and the Pacific office.
National Forest Inventories are considered the gold standard in forest monitoring, providing scientifically sound, field-based data on species composition, biomass, forest degradation, and soil conditions. Despite advances in remote sensing and artificial intelligence, NFIs remain crucial for collecting detailed, ground-truthed data that satellites cannot capture.
This data is essential for evidence-based policymaking, sustainable forest management, and reporting to international platforms like the FAO Forest Resource Assessment and the UNFCCC.Julian Fox, FAO Senior Forestry Officer, emphasized the importance of empowering nations with reliable data.
“Reliable forest data empowers countries to take informed actions on the ground. Strengthening national capacities in forest monitoring equips nations with the tools they need to safeguard forests and build a resilient future,” he stated.
The NFI Learning Journey offers training on the full spectrum of national forest inventory tasks, from planning and implementation to data gathering and reporting. The course caters to different levels of expertise and covers topics such as field data collection, sampling, analysis, and reporting. Participants who complete the course will receive digital badges to recognize their proficiency.
The initiative is a collaborative effort, supported by key partners such as the Global Environment Facility (GEF) through the Building global capacity to increase transparency in the forest sector (CBIT-Forest) project, and the UK’s Accelerating Innovative Monitoring for Forests (AIM4Forests) Initiative. These partnerships reflect FAO’s commitment to fostering global knowledge-sharing in forest monitoring.
The launch event gathered forestry officials, technical experts, and institutional partners from 12 Member Nations in the Asia-Pacific region, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Viet Nam. Regional partners, including the Asian Forest Cooperation Organization (AFoCO), also participated.
FAO’s Forestry Roadmap: From Vision to Action, 2024–31 outlines strategic actions for sustainable forest management and innovation to address global challenges. Strengthening national forest inventories and monitoring systems is a key component of this vision, ensuring consistent and reliable data to support climate action and sustainable forest management across Asia and the Pacific.
FAO encourages all stakeholders—governments, forestry experts, researchers, and institutions—to engage with the NFI Learning Journey to enhance national forest monitoring capacities and contribute to a more sustainable future.
