Forests are among our most powerful allies in addressing climate change. They store vast amounts of carbon, support biodiversity, sustain livelihoods, and provide essential ecosystem services. But designing effective policies to protect forests and promote sustainable land use requires more than data—it requires data that can be trusted and compared.

For researchers, policymakers, companies, and others working at the intersection of forests, agriculture, climate, and sustainable development, one challenge is nearly universal: finding data is only the beginning. Making that data comparable across jurisdictions, across years, and across multiple official sources is often the harder task.

That's why we've launched a major update to the Green Jurisdictions Database (GJDB).

 

 

As part of Earth Innovation Institute's mission to accelerate the transition toward sustainable, low-emission rural development, the Green Jurisdictions Database (GJDB) provides trusted, harmonized data to help governments, researchers, companies, investors, and civil society understand how landscapes are changing and make better decisions. The newly expanded platform brings together official environmental and socioeconomic data in a common framework, harmonizing information across sources, administrative boundaries, and reporting years to enable meaningful comparisons across jurisdictions and over time. With improved tools to discover, visualize, compare, and download data at national and subnational levels, GJDB makes this information more accessible and useful for forest, climate, and sustainable development decision-making.

The new Green Jurisdictions Database makes it easier to explore and compare environmental and socioeconomic data across more than 10,000 national and subnational jurisdictions.

 

Built on official data—made comparable

Governments and international organizations publish an enormous amount of valuable information on forests, agriculture, land cover, demographics, and other indicators. But these datasets are often developed independently, using different formats, geographic boundaries, and reporting schedules.

GJDB brings these datasets together in one place.

Our team processes and harmonizes data from official sources so users can compare jurisdictions with confidence—whether across provinces, states, districts, or municipalities, and whether looking at trends over time or differences between regions.

Rather than spending time locating and cleaning datasets, users can focus on answering important questions.

What's new?

Beyond expanding the amount of available data, the new GJDB has been redesigned to make exploration and analysis more intuitive. 

The updated platform includes several major improvements:

• Expanded coverage with more datasets and indicators
• Regular updates as new official information becomes available
• Improved interactive maps and visualization tools
• Easier comparison of jurisdictions across countries and years
• User registration that enables direct download of datasets for further analysis
• A faster, more intuitive interface for exploring information
• API access for integrating GJDB into external applications and workflows
• Beta AI-powered assistant that helps users discover information, interpret indicators, and navigate the platform through natural language questions
• Multilingual interface (English, Spanish, and Portuguese)
• Introductory and tutorial videos, along with documentation and other learning resources to help users get started

Designed for a wide range of users

Whether you're conducting research, developing public policy, monitoring deforestation or sustainability commitments, or evaluating investments, GJDB provides credible, transparent data to support evidence-based decision-making.

Users can explore indicators related to:

• Forests and land cover
• Agriculture
• Environmental change
• Socioeconomic conditions
• Governance
• And many other topics relevant to jurisdictional sustainability

By bringing these diverse datasets together within a common framework, GJDB helps users identify trends, compare performance, and better understand the changing dynamics of tropical landscapes.

Explore the new platform

This release represents an important step in our ongoing effort to improve access to harmonized, jurisdiction-level data.

We're continuing to expand our geographic coverage, incorporate new official datasets, and enhance the platform with new analytical tools—including a dedicated fire observatory—guided by ongoing feedback from our users and partners.

Whether you're visiting GJDB for the first time or returning as a longtime user, we invite you to explore the new platform, create an account, and see what's possible with the latest generation of jurisdictional-level data.

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The Green Jurisdictions Database was developed and enhanced by Earth Innovation Institute’s Digital Innovations team, under the longtime leadership of Juan Pablo Ardila.