In this new study, we examine the challenges and opportunities for Sigi District (Central Sulawesi Province, Indonesia) to achieve its sustainable development goals. Unlike most districts being supported today in Indonesia to develop or implement their forest-friendly development strategies, Sigi has high forest cover and does not have high rates of deforestation driven by a major export commodity. Thus, instead of focusing on current, acute threats to the District's forests, we consulted local stakeholders to imagine potential development pathways and assess their potential impact. We identified key constraints to and the costs of more efficient, forest-friendly production of main commodities, including corn, rice, coffee and cacao. We estimated the economic value of diverse benefits of standing forests and compared these with the commodity production revenues. A key finding was that there are substantial economic and indirect values in the standing forest and some forest conversion does not appear to increase economic welfare. This points to a high potential for intervening to enhance forest values to favor forests.