Three decades of measuring, monitoring and protecting the world’s forests

The report describes the transition of Global Forest Watch from GFW 1.0, which relied on laborious manual data collection and paper maps in pilot countries, to GFW 2.0, a transformative online platform launched in 2014. Developed through a partnership between the World Resources Institute, Google, and the University of Maryland, GFW 2.0 utilizes satellite data and cloud computing to provide near real-time deforestation alerts. The platform is used by corporations like Nestlé and Unilever to clean supply chains, by indigenous communities to protect ancestral lands, and by civil society to fight illegal logging. Notably, the document highlights that communities in Peru using GFW have reduced deforestation rates by at least 58%.

• Global Forest Watch 1.0 began in 1997 and focused on four pilot countries: Cameroon, Gabon, Indonesia, and Canada, using manual measurements and paper maps.
• The launch of GFW 2.0 in 2014 shifted forest monitoring to a democratic, transparent model using cloud computing and satellite imagery, allowing anyone to identify deforestation anywhere on the planet.
• Major corporations, including Cargill, Unilever, Nestlé, and various banks, utilize GFW to ensure their supply chains for cocoa, palm oil, soy, and beef are deforestation-free.
• Indigenous communities have used GFW to protect their lands, with evidence suggesting they are more effective protectors of forests than governments, environmental groups, or protected areas.
• In Peru, the use of GFW by local communities has led to a reduction in deforestation rates of at least 58%.
• GFW was used to hold companies accountable for land-clearing fires in Indonesia that caused smoke to drift into Singapore by overlaying NASA fire alerts with company concession data.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Three decades of measuring, monitoring and protecting the world’s forests. https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2025-11/stories-changed-world-global-forest-watch.pdf

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Three decades of measuring, monitoring and protecting the world’s forests. n.d. https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2025-11/stories-changed-world-global-forest-watch.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Three decades of measuring, monitoring and protecting the world’s forests |url=https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2025-11/stories-changed-world-global-forest-watch.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendthree, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Three decades of measuring, monitoring and protecting the world’s forests}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2025-11/stories-changed-world-global-forest-watch.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }