Making Sustainable Forest Development Work: Formulating an Idea for a More Appropriate Green Policy Paradigm

There is increasing pressure on the conversion of forest areas for food, energy, development, and other purposes. Development that is driven by green growth is being proposed as a solution. The problem, however, is that many ideas driving the notion of “green” growth are trapped in a contradiction that overwhelmingly focuses on the “green” while neglecting the growth, even if there is a compelling case to be made that “green” and “growth” are not two competing paradigms (World Bank, 2012). Freedom should be the primary element of development. It means that the only acceptable evaluation of human progress is primarily and ultimately enhancement of freedom, and the achievement of development depends on people’s free agency (Sen, 1999). Peacock (2021) argues that the freedom proposed by Sen (1999) is a combination of rationality and commitment. Commitment is essential in development strategy, in addition to the mainstream rational choice theory (Peacock, 2021). Sustainable development is a global issue and forest regime is currently dominates global sustainability discourses on the management of the world’s forests (Giessen, 2013; Sahide et al., 2015). However, such discourses also pay less attention to the different situations in developed and developing countries. For instance, reducing emission and net-zero deforestation has been promoted as policy ideals to be implemented according to the Paris Agreement (UNFCCC, 2015) is less considering the countries’ social, economic, and ecological differences. Thus, promoting more objective sustainable development principles, i.e., reversibility or limits (Letey, 1973), adaptability or tolerance (Letey, 1973), rational commitment (Kuznets, 1955; Sen, 1999; Peacock, 2021), and legitimacy (Nurrochmat et al., 2016b; Peacock, 2021), is necessary to build more appropriate global perspectives in sustainable development. The article aims to promote an idea for establishing a more appropriate set of principles of sustainable forests. The argument provides insight into sustainable forest development in ways that are not only determined by the temporary disturbance of forests (environmental degradation) but also the potential for economic growth, which considers the ability of forests to recover (see Silva, 2021) using the concepts of limits and tolerance (Letey, 1973), rational commitment (Sen, 1999; Peacock, 2021) and legitimacy (Nurrochmat et al., 2016b). Scientific arguments support the idea of the article, for instance, Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) theory (1955), limits and tolerance of ecology (Letey, 1973), and also the green development strategies of the World Bank (2012). The argument is laid out for the purposes of practical implementation.