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This is a presentation I gave in Beijing for the Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative meeting. I briefly introduced the idea of big data, referring to the genome projects as early examples of big data in biology (physics had been generating big data for much longer). I talked about how big data has changed the way many people do science, but that this has also created challenges as attitudes catch up with practice, and as we grapple with ideas about who owns and can access the data. I talked about what journals are doing to aid data access and transparency, and discussed best practices for data handling and presentation. I talked about how multi-site studies, long-term studies, and meta-analyses have in particular driven the need for good data practice. I introduced our sister journal, Scientific Data, which publishes data descriptor articles, and finished with a quick introduction to general editorial practices at the Nature journals.