Sustainable Development Goals and the Forest Sector—A Complex Relationship

Rupert J Baumgartner

doi:10.3390/f10020152

Abstract

The United Nations adopted the Agenda 2030 with its core element, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in September 2015. In order to achieve these goals within the coming years, intense efforts are required by all political and societal actors. Although the first definitions of sustainable development referred to the forest sector, the question remains: what contribution can forestry make to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals? Therefore, the direct positive and negative effects of forestry itself on sustainability are analyzed, and it is discussed how sustainable forest management could contribute to achieving other Sustainable Development Goals in addition to SDG 15. This analysis reveals that forestry plays a dual role, i.e., forestry can achieve positive sustainability effects but can also have negative impacts. It is thus recommended to use integrated assessment approaches to analyze whether a specific forest-related policy or strategy is contributing to sustainable development. Beside quantitative integrated assessments, the use of qualitative frameworks like the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development is proposed. It is also suggested to operationalize the concept of second-order sustainability performance for the forest sector in future research.

Highlights

Forestry is interesting from a sustainable development perspective: an early definition of sustainable development published in the 18th century was applied to forestry [1], and today this sector can play an important role in the transition to a sustainable society
The first definition of sustainable development was related to forestry [1], and medieval sources had already stressed the importance of the long-term use of forests [22]
The analysis of sustainability impacts caused by the forest sector will be separated into first the discussion of sustainability impacts caused by the sector (Section 3.1) and second the assignment of these impacts from forestry to the SustainableDevelopment Goals (SDGs) (Section 3.2)

Summary

Introduction

Forestry is interesting from a sustainable development perspective: an early definition of sustainable development published in the 18th century was applied to forestry [1], and today this sector can play an important role in the transition to a sustainable society. The concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth’s crust (e.g., fossil carbon, metals); the concentrations of substances produced by society (e.g., nitrogen compounds, endocrine disrupters); the degradation by physical means (e.g., large-scale clear-cutting of forests, over-fishing); and, in such a society, people are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs (e.g., decreasing trust through abuse of political and economic power) [19,20] This fourth principle has been further developed to argue that, in a sustainable society, people are not subject to structural obstacles to health (e.g., dangerous working conditions, insufficient rest times), influence (e.g., by suppression of free speech, neglect of opinions), competence (e.g., by obstacles for education, insufficient development options), impartiality (e.g., by discrimination, unfair treatment), and meaning (e.g., by suppression of cultural expression) [21]. Sustainability is a system property and not attributable to the characteristics of a single object alone; instead, it is dependent on both the characteristics of this single object and its relations to other objects and systems

Forest Sector and Sustainable Development

Sustainability Impacts of the Forest Sector

Positive

Findings

Discussion and Conclusion