The Global Forest Observations Initiative (GFOI) is a partnership for assisting tropical countries to monitor their forest and carbon resources. With better information, countries can better manage their forests and take action on climate change.

Partners coordinate their activities under four interlinked components, which together enhance support to tropical countries.

The GFOI is the product of the collaborative actions of its partners. More specifically, the activities of the GFOI include:

• facilitating country-led assessments of their forest monitoring needs and gaps;
• collaboratively implementing forest monitoring support, including:
  • complementary and consistent capacity building;
  • developing and disseminating user friendly guidance;
  • supporting the availability and accessibility of remote sensing data and other key datasets and tools;
  • coordinating research activities to fill knowledge gaps and align the work of the research community with the needs of tropical countries;
• fostering a global network of experts to support countries in a targeted manner; and
• facilitating information-sharing between partners to avoid duplications and overlap.

The GFOI is guided by a Leads Group and supported by a secretariat known as the GFOI Office.

The work of the components is overseen by component managers, which are provided by the GFOI partners.

Please see the GFOI Organizational Chart for more details.