Alicia Barcena serves as Secretary of Environment (Secretaria de Medio Ambiente) in the cabinet of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.
The official title of the department in Spanish is the Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, SEMARNAT), the Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources.
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The person heading the department is the Secretaria de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources.
According to Mexico’s LEY ORGÁNICA DE LA ADMINISTRACIÓN PÚBLICA FEDERAL (Organic Law of the Federal Public Administration), the goal of SEMARNAT
is to “Promote the protection, restoration, conservation, preservation and sustainable exploitation of the ecosystems, natural resources, and environmental goods and services; with the goal of guaranteeing the right to a healthy environment“
Alicia Barcena was born in 1952 in Mexico City. She studied at UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México ) where she received a bachelor’s degree in biology. She studied at Harvard from 1983 to 1985, earning a master’s in public administration.
From 1988 to 1991, Barcena was director of Mexico’s National Fisheries Institute.
Beginning in 1995, Barcena served in various posts in the United Nations.
From 2008 to 2022, she was Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
From 2022 to 2023, she was Mexico’s ambassador to Chile.
From July 2023 to October 1st, 2024, she was Mexico’s Foreign Minister.
On October 1st, 2024, she became Secretary of Environment in the administration of Claudia Sheinbaum which took office that day.