When Kim Carstensen takes over from Andre de Freitas as FSC Director General in October 2012, he will lead the most widely supported forest certification scheme in the world.
And this is no small feat. Innovative thinking, fairness and strong decision-making are all essential qualities for such a high powered job, and FSC has found just the man.
We interview FSC’s new Director General to gain insight into his character and how his experiences will equip him to mainstream responsible forest management at a time when forests are under ever increasing pressure.
How long have you been engaged in sustainability?
Global environmental and development issues have been the central focus of my work for more than 20 years. I was one of two NGOs on the official Danish delegation at the 1992 Rio conference and have been deeply involved with the concept of the three pillars of sustainable development ever since.
I've always liked working in multi-stakeholder contexts. The projects I first worked on in Africa were about understanding and combining nature conservation in a specific area with the social interests of the people who lived there as well as the economic interests of governments, land holders and others. I have always found it necessary to take a holistic approach.
The very foundation of FSC, with its social, environmental and economic chambers which are further divided into the North and South, comes out of exactly these processes and the same way of thinking from the late 1980s when sustainable development emerged as a concept.
Where did you work previously and how has your work supported FSC?
My career has been deeply rooted in WWF, both in a technical capacity and in a leadership role. I started working for WWF Denmark in 1989, with a focus on conservation and development projects in Africa and later also in Asia and Latin America.
In 1996, I became Secretary General of WWF Denmark and assumed leadership of managing people with many different roles and technical backgrounds. Over those twelve years, we worked a lot with large tropical timber industries like DLH to encourage them to engage in FSC certification.
I attached great importance to building close relations with Danish and international business actors, and in many cases, the relations developed into long-term partnerships that evolved over time. For example, the establishment of The Forest Trust (TFT) in 1999 was a result of talks with JYSK, ScanCom International and other European companies. Linked to this, we also ran a tropical garden furniture campaign over several years to make FSC known among the consumers. And we worked with the Danish government and the Danish forest owners association on sustainable forest management issues.
I transitioned to WWF International in 2008, taking over the global climate change work, leading WWFs campaigns and policy work at the Copenhagen COP-15 conference in 2009, where forests were an important focus in the climate debate.
"The switch was quite natural given my involvement in strategic development in WWF International for a number of years. I was Chairman of WWF International’s Conservation Committee when we designed the new conservation programme between 2006 and 2008, which was a big exercise involving all of the national offices and setting conservation strategies all over the world".
What excites you most about your new role and the contribution you can make?
The exciting thing about FSC is the level of success it has already experienced, and it is in a great position for this to continue. I truly believe the FSC’s greatest assets are its credibility and its multi-stakeholder support. FSC must continue to ensure that the label reflects something real out there in the forest, and it must maintain the vast support and engagement from stakeholders. This is the very core that FSC must continue to build upon in the future.
I’m really keen to be part of making the FSC brand grow beyond where it is today. This will require an understanding of the different perspectives and interests of the different stakeholders. These perspectives are each valid, each important, and I bring a very long tradition of bringing social, environmental and economic interests together, that combined, are stronger than each individual element.
What is your secret to success?
I have a knack for making people from very difficult cultures and backgrounds understand each other and work together. This was one of the main challenges that made my climate work interesting, trying to get people from China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Japan, Russia, US and Europe to understand each other, to respect each other’s different perspectives and to feel that they could work together as one whole. My role as a mediator is something I really enjoy and believe it’s very important.
What might the FSC community be surprised to learn about you?
When you think of someone coming from WWF, you would often think of a biologist with a strong focus on species diversity. Now I am keen on this, but I mastered in sociology. I come from the angle of making sure that people can continue to live in areas that are also important from a nature conservation perspective.
In Pacaya Samiria in the Peruvian Amazon, an area of around 20,000 km2 of mainly flooded forest was designated under strict protection by the Peruvian government. It was inundated for around half of the year, serving as an important area for fish and water birds. There had been very little interaction with the local people who had lived there for hundreds of years along and around the rivers, and the rules as to what was and wasn’t allowed were hazy. Some of the people were moved out of the area and they were completely at the mercy of understaffed, poorly paid forest guards.
The approach we took was not to strengthen the forest patrolling system but rather to use the Peruvian legislation to enable these communities to fight for land rights. This meant they no longer had to ask the guards for permission to access their land. They also became a factor for the Peruvian government; suddenly they had rights to schools, rights to clinics, rights to vote in elections. Before that, they were tiny dots on a map without any recognition that they were citizens of Peru. We then helped them understand how they were part of large area which also had relevance for the global environment and which needed protection. Whilst this didn’t immediately resolve the conflicts, it gave the local people a platform to discuss the issues, and, importantly, gave them a way to protect their areas from illegal loggers and other intruders.
We did a similar thing in Niger in the Sahel zone in West Africa, where big droughts in the 1980’s forced the local Tuareg nomads to sell their livestock and move to refugee camps. In 1989, when we began working in the area, there had been two good years of rain, and we quickly realised that the area was quite resilient. All the grasses had come back and the bushes too. But in some places the trees has been over exploited. We then worked with the local people to implement a tree management programme and set up a drought strategy with a fund. At the onset of a drought, they could access money from the fund to transport their livestock outside the drought-stricken area, say to Nigeria, where they could sell it for a reasonable price. This enabled them to survive the drought and replenish the fund.
I think this was the right approach for the area, rather than setting up more rigid rules about what they were allowed to do and where they were allowed to go with their livestock, which ultimately increases the level of conflict between the government and local people. It turned out to be the only project that survived a region-wide Tuareg rebellion between 1992 and 1997 because we had some level of understanding with the local people that there were benefits from our way of protecting the and natural assets of the area.
What does becoming a Knight for Order of Dannebrog mean in Denmark?
By tradition, the Danish Royal Family knights those who have made a valuable contribution to their country. It was a great honour to have been knighted for my efforts at WWF Denmark. As CEO, I interacted quite a bit with Danish Prince Consort, founder and president of WWF Denmark.
Where might we find you on a Sunday afternoon?
I really like cycling. In fact when I left WWF after COP-15, my wife and I cycled across Europe for one year. Leaving Denmark on our anniversary, we biked around Germany, France, Italy and Malta and returned one year later to the day. We liked Germany a lot and moving to Bonn will offer some fantastic cycling opportunities up and down the rivers and through the forest. That’s something I’m really looking forward to.
Language has been a useful tool on my travels. While English is my primary working language, I also speak German, French, a bit of Swedish, enough Italian to go shopping at the green grocers market and of course I’m now learning FSC’s second working language, Spanish.
> Andre de Freitas: Integrity remains our top priority (General Assembly report 27/06 2011)