Manuel Baquedano is founder and president of the Institute for Political Ecology (IEP), a leading Santiago-based group that since 1987 has used policy research and activism to tackle environmental issues ranging from Santiago smog to global climate change. Baquedano has a degree in sociology from Belgium’s Catholic University at Louvain. Before starting IEP, he founded and led a Chilean nonprofit that advocated for environmentally sustainable technology. Among his recent accomplishments, Baquedano participated in an international panel that has proposed a World Water Protocol and in October 2009 was elected president of the Federation of Green Parties of the Americas. He is also active in the politics of Chile, which in a runoff this month chose a new president: center-right billionaire businessman Sebastián Piñera. Baquedano spoke recently with EcoAméricas correspondent James Langman about Chile’s new president and the future of green politics in the Americas.