Martin Herold is a Professor of Remote Sensing at Wageningen University and co-leads the land cover team Global Observations of Forest Cover and Land Dynamics (GOFC-GOLD) and the R&D component of the Global Forests Observations Initiative (GFOI). He is an expert in the harmonization and validation of global land change datasets, and the development and implementation support for large land cover and forest monitoring systems in the context of UNFCCC (GCOS implementation plan and REDD+), and FAO’s FRA remote sensing survey. He is a member of IAEG-SDG working group geospatial information on SDG indicators and increasingly works the role of transparent monitoring in performance assessment and engaging stakeholders.