Kirsten Carlsen

Short presentation

As a PhD researcher at Forest & Landscape, division of forest policy, economics and managment planning, the overall theme of my work at present is governance of timber producing tropical forests. In particular I explore how and why market based instruments may (not) be effective in addressing issues deforestation in the tropics, given the political economy of the forestry sector in these areas. My empirical work takes place in Ghana, where I focus on the functionality of FSC certification and the FLEGT licensing schemes as market based systems of governance in the context of the political economy of the forestry sector in Ghana

In addition to this, I am a part of the teaching team conducting the on-line course in socio-economics in tropical forestry and I have held a number of individiual presentations and workshops during different courses and seminars related with various aspects of forest governance.

I graduated as an MSc in Forestry from the Faculty of Life Sciences in 2002. Before i got my PhD scholarship in 2009, I was working as an environmental economist at the Economic Council in Denmark. Before that, I worked as a Programme Officer at the Natural Resouce Management Sector Assistance Programme (NARMSAP) in Nepal. My work experiences range from conflict mediation in local forest user groups in Nepal to analysis of the economic efficiency of biofuels in Denmark. My main fields of interest are, however, within the realms of political economy, state governance and private self regulation in relation to forest and natural resouce managment.