Halfway through his six-year term, Mexican President Vicente Fox has gutted his environmental team. On the night of Sept. 1, Fox gave his annual State of the Union speech, addressing government inefficiency and the fact that Mexico suffers from “serious environmental deterioration.” The next morning, he fired Víctor Lichtinger, head of the Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat (Semarnat), as well as José Ignacio Campillo, head of the Office of Attorney General for Environmental Protection (Profepa), and Raúl Arriaga, Semarnat’s Undersecretary for Management of Environmental Protection. Fox named Alberto Cárdenas, head of the National Forestry Commission, as the new Semarnat secretary, and José Luis Luege, a former congressman, to the Profepa post. A replacement for Arriaga has yet to be selected. Cárdenas quickly took hold... [Log in to read more]