1 February 2012: Data from the 2010 Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA), published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), are now available online. The FRA is a means to monitor the world’s forests at five-to-ten-year intervals, and has been conducted since 1946.

The FRA is based on data that countries provide to FAO in response to a common questionnaire addressing the thematic elements of sustainable forest management. The online database for FRA 2010 is interactive and can produce multiple output formats and generate simple diagrams. Information stored in the database include: forest extent and characteristics; ownership and management; forest establishment; volume, biomass and carbon; forest health; employment and human resources; education and research; revenues and expenditures in the forest sector; and all tables from FRA 2010. [FRA 2010 Interactive Database Website]