New developments in remote sensing such as very high resolution satellite imagery, LiDAR techniques that support the measuring of vegetation structure among others parameters, can really help nowadays to speed up the process of biodiversity monitoring and vegetation mapping at very fine scales. In addition, current free and open data policy will have a dramatic impact on our ability to understand how biodiversity and other ecological attributes and processes are being affected by anthropogenic pressures. In all, more satellite imagery is becoming available as open data, such as the imagery from the European SENTINELS, providing essential and harmonized information for different thematic questions, across political boundaries, and at multiple scales. We need to gain knowledge on the status of degraded systems that play key roles in the trade-off between provision of goods and maintenance of carbon stocks, biodiversity, and other related environmental services. Using a mixture of remote sensing and field methods requires ecologists and remote sensing experts to collaborate closely with the newest capabilities and modelling approaches. In this presentation, I will highlight examples in different regions of new capabilities on coupling remote sensing field observation and models in answer to operational solutions towards a better understanding of natural systems to mitigate global change and related anthropogenic impacts.