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Never has there been so much demand for data and information about the world’s forests. Achieving international goals and national commitments related to forest conservation and management, climate change, and sustainable development requires credible, accurate, and reliable monitoring of changes in forest extent and carbon stocks. Rapid developments in forest monitoring technologies—notably the use of satellite data and other remote sensing methods—now enable efficient monitoring of forest extent, characteristics, and changes over large areas consistently through time. However, there is a widening gap between what is demonstrated in a research context and what is developed, maintained, and applied in tropical forest countries. At the same time, proliferating demands for forest-related information and the diversity of forest monitoring systems developed to meet those demands risk creating confusion and redundancy.