10 October 2014, Rome – FAO has launched a set of free software tools in the hope that it will improve the way many developing nations monitor the state of their forests. Deforestation and forest degradation – which occurs largely in developing countries - are among the largest sources of carbon emissions globally caused by humans. The software - known as Open Foris - is designed to assist countries through the entire lifecycle of a forest inventory – from assessment, design and field data collection to analysis and reporting.