Sara María Larraín Ruiz-Tagle is a Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

an politician and environmentalist

Environmentalist

An environmentalist broadly supports the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities"...

 who ran for president

President of Chile

The President of the Republic of Chile is both the head of state and the head of government of the Republic of Chile. The President is responsible of the government and state administration...

 in 1999 presidential election. She is of Basque

Basque people

The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...

 descent.

Education and early career

Larraín attended the Universidad de Chile in 1972, studying anthropology

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

. She went on to finish her studies at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile

Pontifical Catholic University of Chile

The Pontifical Catholic University of Chile is one of the six Catholic Universities existing in the Chilean university system and one of the two Pontifical Universities in the country, along with the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso. It is also one of Chile's oldest universities and...

, receiving a degree in teaching for the plastic arts. From 1978 to 1989, Larraín was an academic in the field of aesthetics

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...

, teaching at Chile's Catholic universities, Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educación

Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educación

The Metropolitan University of Educational Sciences is a university specialized in Pedagogy and located in the commune of Ñuñoa, Santiago, Chile.-History:The university was created in 1889 as the Instituto Pedagógico de la Universidad de Chile...

. From 1989 to 1993, she was a founding member and the director of the Chile (Pacífico Sur) office of Greenpeace

Greenpeace

Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...

, and also worked with organizations like RENACE (Red Nacional de Acción Ecológica, or the "National Network for Environmental Action") and organizations for the research of globalization

Globalization

Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...

. From 1997 to 2001 she served as the director of the Sustainable Chile Program (Programa Chile Sustentable).

Presidential campaign

Larraín put herself forth as an independent

Independent (politician)

In politics, an independent or non-party politician is an individual not affiliated to any political party. Independents may hold a centrist viewpoint between those of major political parties, a viewpoint more extreme than any major party, or they may have a viewpoint based on issues that they do...

 candidate for the presidency of Chile

President of Chile

The President of the Republic of Chile is both the head of state and the head of government of the Republic of Chile. The President is responsible of the government and state administration...

 in the 1999 presidential election. Supported by various environmentalists, she managed to receive about 0.5% of the signatures necessary to file her candidacy. In the election, she received 31,319 votes, or 0.44% of the vote, coming in fifth place. The only candidate she bested was former Senator

Senate of Chile

The Senate of the Republic of Chile is the upper house of Chile's bicameral National Congress, as established in the current Constitution of Chile.-Composition:...

, Arturo Frei

Arturo Frei

Arturo Frei Bolívar is a Chilean political figure, a former senator and presidential candidate in the 2000 election.He was born in Santiago, son of Arturo Frei Montalva and of Marcela Bolívar Le Fort. His uncle was Eduardo Frei Montalva, who would become president of Chile in 1964...

. When the first vote resulted in no majority, a runoff election was held between Ricardo Lagos

Ricardo Lagos

Ricardo Froilán Lagos Escobar is a lawyer, economist and social democrat politician, who served as president of Chile from 2000 to 2006. He won the 1999-2000 presidential election by a narrow margin in a runoff over Independent Democrat Union candidate Joaquín Lavín...

 (PPD

Party for Democracy

The Party for Democracy is a political party in Chile; it is social democratic in its political orientation. It was founded in December 1987 by Ricardo Lagos, who aimed at forming a legal social democratic party . The party continued to function after the defeat of Pinochet...

/CPD

Coalition of Parties for Democracy

The Concert of Parties for Democracy , more often known as the Concertación, is a coalition of center-left political parties in Chile, founded in 1988...

) and Joaquín Lavín

Joaquín Lavín

Joaquín José Lavín Infante is a Chilean politician and economist. He is a member of the Independent Democrat Union party and former mayor of Santiago and Las Condes municipalities of capital Santiago...

 (UDI

Independent Democrat Union

The Independent Democrat Union is a Chilean right-wing, conservative political party, founded in 1983. Its main inspirer was the lawyer, politician and law professor Jaime Guzmán, a former senator of the Republic of Chile from 1990 until his assassination on April 1, 1991.Its ideological origins...

/APC

Alliance for Chile

The Alliance for Chile , also known simply as The Alliance , was a coalition of right-wing Chilean political parties.The Alliance was replaced in 2009 by the Coalition for Change....

). Larraín, along with Gladys Marín

Gladys Marín

Gladys del Carmen Marín Millie was a Chilean activist and political figure. She was Secretary-General of the Communist Party of Chile and then president of the PCCh until her death...

 (PCC

Communist Party of Chile

The Communist Party of Chile is a Chilean political party inspired by the thoughts of Karl Marx and Lenin. It was founded in 1922, as the continuation of the Socialist Workers Party, and in 1934 it established its youth wing, the Communist Youth of Chile .In the last legislative elections in Chile...

) and Tomás Hirsch

Tomás Hirsch

Tomás René Hirsch Goldschmidt is a leftist Chilean politician and businessman. He was the Together We Can Do More pact candidate for the 2005 Chilean presidential election, winning 5.4% of the vote.- Biography :...

 (PH

Humanist Party (Chile)

The Humanist Party is a progressive left-wing political party in Chile, founded in 1984.In December 1990, Laura Rodríguez became the first elected representative of any Humanist Party in the world after winning a seat as part of the Concertación coalition, after Augusto Pinochet handed over...

) threw their support behind the Concertación coalition candidate, Ricardo Lagos. Lagos went on to defeat Lavín, the conservative candidate.

Environmental activism

Larraín has continued her environmental activism with various organizations, principally working with the Sustainable Chile Program, of which she serves as director. Since 2001 she has served as a member of the Consultative Council of the National Commission for the Environment (Comisión Nacional del Medio Ambiente, CONAMA). She has also been a strong opponent of projects like the Pascua Lama

Pascua Lama

Pascua-Lama is an open pit mining project of gold, silver, copper and other minerals. Pascua Lama is located in the Andes mountains, south of Atacama, straddling the border between Chile and Argentina at an altitude of over 4,500 metres. Toronto-based Barrick Gold, the world's largest gold mining...

, the dam

Dam

A dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. Hydropower and pumped-storage hydroelectricity are...

s in the Aisén Region, and the introduction of nuclear power in her country to address Chile's energy crisis. This has caused her to distance herself from the Concertación governments, despite their earlier closeness.