Marine Forests is an open source project supported by scientists and volunteer citizens to collect and organize information about the marine forests of the world. The project aims to build and maintain a database of distribution records of structural benthic species of seaweeds, seagrasses and animal forests, at global scales, and to make this information freely available worldwide. It also promotes education, marine literacy and the FAIR principle (to make data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable).