Start of AIM4Commodities project activities in Colombia: strengthening the traceability and sustainability of cocoa
May 5, 2025
Cali, Colombia – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) made a major contribution to promoting the role of forests at the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
For Forest and Water Day, FAO launched a new Digital Public Good, Open Foris Whisp, which will help Indigenous Peoples and smallholder farmers produce forest monitoring information and support compliance with deforestation regulations. The open-source solution provides insights on different datasets from satellite-derived forest, land-use and tree-cover maps, combining information to gain a more detailed understanding of a particular area.
“Open Foris Whisp helps ensure sustainable practices and enables compliance with regulated markets, which is critical to enable Indigenous Peoples’ continued livelihoods and contribution to the transformation of sustainable agrifood systems,” said Julian Fox, Senior FAO Forestry Officer, who presented Whisp at COP 16.
The development of Whisp is a collaborative effort between partners and programmes such as the European Union’s Team Europe Initiative, the Accelerating Innovative Monitoring for Forests programme (AIM4Forests) and the Forest Data Partnership (FDaP).
Communities of practice to accelerate action
FAO also teamed up with partners to highlight the importance of forests in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), the urgent need to support the critical role of Indigenous Peoples and other rights holders for forests, climate and biodiversity, and for innovative solutions for sustainable forest-based economies.
As part of its partnership with the International Land Coalition (ILC), FAO announced the establishment of communities of practice on forest monitoring and land mapping led by regional Indigenous Peoples and community organizations in Africa, Latin America and Asia, which FAO and ILC will support through joint technical and financial assistance.
The communities of practice will foster peer-to-peer learning, knowledge exchange and capacity development on technical solutions and approaches to forest monitoring and territorial mapping. They will also support the decentralization of LandMark – an interactive global platform designed to help Indigenous Peoples, local communities, smallholders and pastoralists protect their land rights and secure tenure over their lands – by fostering greater ownership and active engagement in managing data and information.
An e-learning course was also launched, developed by the United Nations Development Programme, with technical support from FAO via its AIM4Forests programme. Through the e-learning course, users learn how forest mapping and monitoring tools can help Indigenous Peoples and other frontline communities better manage their lands, territories and resources.
COP16
A key platform for dialogue, COP enables pertinent actors to come together and share knowledge and decision-making, in a bid to produce the best outcomes.
Since its establishment in 2022, the KMGBF has helped pave the way to achieving the objectives of the CBD and set the world on a path to live in harmony with nature: conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits from the use of genetic resources.
