ForTy Maps Forest Types and Tracks Their Changes
- Google DeepMind and Google Research released ForTy 2020 with WRI and IIASA, assigning forest and land-use classes to locations worldwide on a 10-meter grid.
- The map uses six classes: primary forest, naturally regenerating forest, planted forest, plantation forest, tree crops and agroforestry, and other land.
- An accompanying annual dataset follows changes from 2017 through 2025, including natural forest conversion to plantations or farms.
- Unlike the earlier Natural Forests of the World 2020 map, which marked whether land was natural forest in that year, ForTy identifies forest types and follows their changes over time.
Our take
For deforestation-screening pipelines, the class and transition data can distinguish conversion to tree-crop farms from shifts to plantation forests, rather than treating tree cover as a single category. The announcement provides no accuracy or parcel-level validation figures, so mapped classes should not be treated as conclusive compliance evidence.
Sources
- Beyond tree cover: mapping the world’s forest types · Google DeepMind
The summary and analysis were generated by AI. The original sources are authoritative. AI content policy