Chilean environmentalists are concerned about the possible measures to be taken by the incoming environment minister María Ignacia Benítez, given her work as a private projects solicitor before the Environmental Impact Assessment System, some of which came under fire from citizen groups. Chilean environmentalists are concerned about the possible measures to be taken by the incoming environment minister María Ignacia Benítez, given her work as a private projects solicitor before the Environmental Impact Assessment System, some of which came under fire from citizen groups.

Benítez, a chemical engineer by training, was named to her post by right-leaning President Elect Sebastián Piñera, who will be sworn in to office Mar. 11.

“Although the environmental institutions in Chile have never worked properly, we predict that in the government of right- wing Piñera things unfortunately will not improve. We are hoping for a miracle,” Patricio Herman, president of Defend the City, a non-governmental organization, told Tierramérica.

“The future government has said it will be fast, flexible and 'anti-bureaucratic' in taking decisions, and we know well what those words mean,” he said with a note of irony.