PRESENTER: Cecilia Collados

BIO: Economist, Master in City Planning, Ph.D. Candidate in City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. Utilizing concepts of ecological economics, her dissertation presents a model relating the use of natural capital and the quality of life at a regional level. This model can be used as the basis for regional sustainable development policy. She has worked for the Agriculture Ministry in Chile, developing policy for the use of pesticides, and as a research assistant at the department of Development Studies, Rice University, Houston Texas. She currently works as CEO at Austral Biologicals, a distributor of Chilean produced biological reagents.

TITLE: Creating Environmental Institutions in Response to International Demand: The case of Chile

ABSTRACT: During the 70's and 80's, the opening of the Chilean economy to global markets brought international pressure to create environmental institutions in Chile. These institutions have been created and are in the process of implementing new policies and programs. This research evaluates the environmental approval process and its results in the case of the construction of hydroelectric dams in the Alto Bio-Bio region in Chile. Preliminary findings indicate that the environmental institutions currently do not effectively contribute to the immediate improvement of the internal use of natural capital. This work identifies areas of desirable institutional action for regional sustainable development policy.