Romina Picolotti Named Head of Argentina’s Environmental Secretariat

June 27, 2006. Buenos Aires. Argentina’s Chief of Cabinet, Alberto Fernandez, announced today, following several weeks of growing uncertainty over the future of Argentina’s Environmental Secretariat, that Romina Picolotti, age 35, human rights advocate, and founder of the Center for Human Rights and Environment (CEDHA), recently awarded the Sophie Prize 2006 for her innovative contribution to sustainable development, will be the new chief of Argentina’s Environmental Secretariat. The Secretariat will move up in institutional ranking and depend directly of the Cabinet of Ministers becoming at some near future date, a full Ministry.

Legal representative of the Assembly of Gualeguaychú, of the Government of Entre Ríos and more recently of the National Government in growing bilateral conflict between Argentina and Uruguay involving the installation of two controversial paper mills on the Uruguay River, Romina Picolotti spoke recently to President Kirchner on the need to elevate Argentina’s environmental agenda, and show a serious commitment to the environment, and particularly the need to elaborate an environmental agenda that is participatory, and strongly geared towards the realization of human rights of the communities most affected by environmental degradation.

In the midst of the growing conflict with Uruguay, and just days before Argentina’s filing of a complaint before the International Court of Justice in the case, President Kirchner announced his intention of prioritizing the environment and elevating the status of the Environmental Secretariat, and presented before his European counterparts in Vienna, in an unheralded position, his serious concerns over the systematic exportation of contaminating industries from industrialized countries to the developing world. This paradigmatic shift in Argentina’s position regarding the environment generated great expectations from local environmental actors and civil society in Argentina.

Picolotti returned to Argentina in 1999, to found CEDHA (the NGO which she now precedes) with the objective of promoting an environmental agenda that is more closely linked with Human Rights, and which guarantees a more healthy environmental for all personas, but especially for those vulnerable groups which suffer a disproportionate burden of environmental degradation. She takes to Argentina’s maximum environmental agency, a long trajectory on matters related to sustainable development and human rights, including work with diverse national and international organizations. She has worked with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the International Human Rights Law Group (now Global Rights), CEJIL, the Organization of American States, and other non-governmental organizations, in Washington, Nicaragua, Peru, Haiti and Cambodia.

The new head of Argentina’s Environmental Secretariat will be sworn in next week by President Kirchner, at which point she will announce her team and action plan for the next year. The plan will include a strong gravitation of environment to social issues and to human rights, promoting participation and access to information, characteristic of Picolotti’s work with CEDHA and for which she received the Sophie Prize 2006. She will also seek alliances with the Private Sector, with a view to generate cleaner production and help modernize Argentina’s most contaminating industries, ultimately benefiting those most affected by environmental degradation.

She has absolute support from Argentina’s president in taking all of the decisions necessary to transform Argentina’s environmental agenda, elevating it to a priority place on the socio-economic and political agendas and towards more sustainable development and respect for human rights.

For more information:

Contact CEDHA; www.cedha.org.ar; 54 351 425 6278 or cel. 54 9 351 625 3290