Sustainable development and landscape management requires extensive monitoring and tracking that is supported with plenty of data. Forest conservation and landscape-based monitoring and tracking relay on geospatial data and sharing it for plan and implement conservation and management activities. GIS-based approaches and tools have been developed and used during the last 25 years for the various aspects of land resource management such as natural resource inventory mapping, land use/cover monitoring, soil suitability evaluation, natural hazard monitoring and assessment, etc (Polykretis et al., 2022). Particularly in terms of supporting decision-making for landscape conservation and planning, spatial information on the various (natural, socio-cultural and perceptual/aesthetic) attributes characterizing a landscape is decisive.

Landscape change monitoring and tracking techniques need to be used to measure environmental conditions to understand how an area has been changed over time and to predict future changes based on past trends. In this regard, forest for sustainable development can play a key role to raise awareness of the importance of timely and effective fit-for-purpose landscape and forest that must be affordable and accessible by all, and particularly due to the farm African commitments to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to contribute to climate change mitigation. Spatial data sharing involves the development and implementation of policies, agreements, and frameworks that govern the exchange of geospatial data. The forest for sustainable development will employ the interface of science, policy, and practice to tackle the global crisis facing nature and support the transition to a sustainable future for forest and the planet. We will develop a suite of knowledge and tools to help decision makers with the trade-offs and synergies faced in balancing food security, livelihoods and the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services.