Mexico announced a swap in the post of environment minister Sep. 2, winning condemnation from environmental groups. “The replacement of the environment secretary is an indication of the ignorance and disinterest of President (Vicente) Fox when it comes to ecology,” Homero Aridjis, president of the environmentalist Group of 100, told Tierramérica.

Fox removed environment minister Victor Lichtinger, an environmental expert who was not active in party politics, and replaced him with Alberto Cárdenas, former governor of Jalisco state, and member of the governing National Action Party.

The environment watchdog Greenpeace expressed “profound disappointment in what looks more like a political accommodation than a search for solutions to the country's environmental problems.”