Adriana Hoffmann is the new executive director of Chile’s National Environmental Commission (Conama), the country’s lead environmental agency. Her appointment by Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, who took office in March, was controversial. Formerly coordinator of Defenders of the Chilean Forests, a forest activist group, she has been at the center of many of Chile’s hottest environmental debates. Some in the country’s business community assert this ought to disqualify her from the Conama post, but Hoffmann’s supporters say she’ll be fair-minded and bring much needed change to the six-year-old agency. A botanist, Hoffmann has written extensively about Chile’s flora and contributed regularly to El Mercurio, Chile’s largest newspaper. She also has a keen interest in environmental education. She worked for much of the 1980s at the Claudio Gay Foundation in Santiago to design and implement eco-education programs and materials. Hoffmann spoke this month with EcoAméricas correspondent James Langman in Santiago. [Log in to read more]

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