Today I read an interview of the new staff director at FSC-IC. It appears on the WWF Global site and, as you might expect, isn’t particularly hard-hitting. I found it interesting, nonetheless.
Kim Carstensen is a Dane who appears to have a strong background in the environmental policy field, including (not surprisingly) a senior position with WWF. He is – interestingly – a sociologist, and remarks in his interview on the need to improve the FSC-IC’s outreach and engagement of the social chamber. I would agree that this “third leg” of the FSC stool has always been a bit weak.
When asked about challenges, Carstensen remarked on the ubiquitous problem of developing into the third world – particularly Africa. Nothing new hear. He also comments about the need for pursuing a “true balance” among the chambers. I wonder what that might mean to him and the rest of the senior staff. They’ve certainly been displaying a remarkable insensitivity to the Economic Chamber recently (see my earlier posts on the ILO issue).
The one subject that isn’t mentioned at all is complexity. Is the FSC system becoming so internally complex that it may become self-destructive? That’s a theme that deserves more thought and discussion. It may be too much to expect from a softball interview of a brand new staff director. Hopefully he’ll get to it soon.