From Community Forests to Digital Innovation: How Open Foris Is Transforming Forest Monitoring

From Local Forest Monitoring to Digital Innovation in Agrifood Systems: Open Foris in Action

In Uganda, forest monitoring has moved from paper-based field notes to cloud-enabled digital analysis. Forest officers now collect data in the field using mobile devices and analyse satellite imagery through cloud-based platforms, enabling faster detection of forest change, improved transparency and more informed decision-making.

This transformation has been made possible through Open Foris, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ (FAO) free and open-source platform for forest and land monitoring. Since 2013, Open Foris tools—particularly SEPAL—have been integrated into Uganda’s National Forest Monitoring System, supporting land-cover mapping, forest change detection, inventories, restoration planning and law enforcement.

“Because of SEPAL, limited resources such as time and money are saved,” said Edward Ssenyonjo, Inventory and Surveys Coordinator at Uganda’s National Forest Authority, highlighting how digital tools have strengthened national capacities while reducing operational costs.

Digital innovation at scale

Uganda’s experience reflects a broader shift across Africa and beyond, as countries adopt digital public goods to improve forest and land monitoring. Open Foris provides countries with free access to advanced digital solutions, eliminating license fees and vendor dependence while ensuring transparency, national data ownership and long-term sustainability.

Today, Open Foris is used in more than 190 countries, supporting national forest inventories, Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) under the UN Climate Convention, deforestation-free supply chains and ecosystem restoration monitoring—key components of sustainable agrifood systems.

Advancing digital innovation, including artificial intelligence

By combining field data with cloud-based satellite processing, Open Foris also enables the use of advanced analytics and artificial intelligence. Machine-learning approaches support the identification of forest change patterns, emissions reporting and large-scale land monitoring.

‘’The FAO has been using machine learning in remote sensing for a long time, but recent breakthroughs have significantly improved the way we access the data and turn it into valuable information’’ noted Andreas Vollrath, Forestry Officer at FAO, referring to AI-enabled models that allow comparisons of forest dynamics across regions.

From local data collection to national and global reporting, Open Foris demonstrates how digital innovation can translate forest data into actionable insight, supporting climate action, sustainable forest management and resilient agrifood systems.

Learn more: https://www.fao.org/interactive/open-foris/en/
Use Open Foris: https://openforis.org/
Interactive Story: https://www.fao.org/interactive/open-foris/en/
AI and Forest Management: https://www.openforis.net/artificial-intelligence-is-revolutionising-forest-management-worldwide/

This article was originally published here.