Sightings
| alumni news
Right Place, Right Time, Right Person
Marcia Toledo Sotillo Shapes Key Environmental Policy and Management
in Peru
by Diana Nelson
Marcia Toledo Sotillo MEM/MF ’02 believes that certain things are meant to be.
Finding herself at a large group dinner in June 2002 in Raleigh seated next to congresswoman Fabiola Morales Castillo from her native Peru, Toledo could not believe her luck. Morales was at the time the incoming president of the government’s Ecology and Environment Commission (EEC), the congressional body that develops and adopts environmental law in Peru. They talked and exchanged contact information.
“Life is made of many things, and for me courage and fate play key roles,” explains Toledo Sotillo, who goes by Toledo. “I was eager to return home after graduation but stayed in North Carolina for one month of vacation because my boyfriend at the time was employed there. He was invited to a political dinner for his work, and I did not want to go, he had to talk me into joining him.”
Upon her return to Peru, Toledo met again with Morales, who was so impressed by her education and background that she created a new position of environmental technical advisor just for her. In this role, Toledo educated commission members— some with little science background, others with none—about technical environmental terms and issues and helped them prioritize goals within key areas of focus such as mining, solid waste disposal, fisheries, conservation and social responsibility issues.
“I was not sure at first that I was totally prepared to be the technical advisor to the politicians who actually make the decisions about environmental law and policy in Peru,” she says. “I knew the challenge was great, but also I knew I had to embrace the opportunity to make a difference and go for it.”
Because EEC leadership changes each year, time was of the essence. In her role, Toledo organized and managed a comprehensive program funded by the Netherlands Cooperation Agency that strengthened the institutional capacity of the EEC through the creation of improved communication and information exchange capabilities. She arranged workshops and town meetings across the country among constituents, scientists, economists, consultants and politicians to promote awareness and open dialogue about key environmental issues, and recorded their outcomes and feedback for consideration in the design of the General Environmental Law adopted two years later in 2005.
“I learned the importance of bringing together different stakeholders to improve environmental decision-making processes in Peru,” she says. “Language is important, to be able to take technical concepts and make them understandable to nontechnical people. It is important to listen, to respect different opinions and communication styles, and to be efficient in language and communication.”
Toledo credits Morales’ leadership as key to the commission’s successful term. The EEC previously worked only with legal advisors, but Morales added Toledo’s role to the commission’s permanent staff to improve understanding and communication about key technical environmental issues.
“Peru has many different cultures, different landscapes,” Toledo explains. “A lot of what is happening here in the environment is happening locally, but limited information and analysis of local land-use systems constrain national decision makers. Morales understands this, and the need for communication, and that is why we were able to make progress in outreach and awareness, and in developing the new law needed.”