What does it take to be a good Minister of Environment?

I have been reflecting of late on what the key qualities of a good Minister of Environment are, whether in Colombia or anywhere in the world.  To share some quick thoughts, here are the five key qualities that I have identified:

1. Outstanding moral, intellectual and personal commitment to the issue of sustainable development, sustainability and the environment.  (This of course would seem to go without saying, but it's worth stressing...the stronger the commitment, I would posit, the more the Minister will seek to promote their cause - especially when the going gets tough...)..

2. A capacity to make strong, clear arguments to other Government ministries and to the private sector on environmental issues: arguments based strongly on economics, wherever possible, but also on ethics.  A good Minister should have the arguments, for example, of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, or the TEEB Study on the Economics of Biodiversity, at their finger tips.  In the Colombian case, the Minister should be able to rattle off statistics about the economic impact of the flooding over the past year; or on the value of the country's national parks to water provision in the big cities...
3. The ability to be a good, clear and strong negotiator with the other sectors and the Executive on the environmental cause: to cede on some points, not to cede on others, the capacity to come to binding agreements and to generate trust in a given negotiation.

4. A clear communicator in the media, public debates and with civil society: someone who is able to make the case for the environment in a clear, objective but charismatic way in the public domain and who, by doing this, wins the overwhelming support of civil society in the support of the environmental cause.  I say this because I believe that civil society in the UK and elsewhere is what holds politicians to account and what generates at least some progressive legislation on the environment from time to time.

5. Someone with an international projection: i.e. a person who is aware, experienced, involved in and who excels in international debates and negotiations, and in the international discussion surrounding sustainable development.  In practical terms, I refer to someone who speaks good English and who is capable to project what is being done nationally at the international level.

In summary, five qualities: commitment, argument, negotiation, communication and the international dimension.

I believe the best Environment Ministers in the world at the moment, past or present, have demonstrated a powerful combination of these factors: I am thinking of Marina Silva, the former Brazilian Environment Minister, or Jairam Ramesh, the current, charismatic Indian Minister, about whom a good profile was written recently in Newsweek.

It would be interesting to evaluate the performance of the current British Minister, Caroline Spelman, on the basis of these criteria; my instinct is that she would get a 2 out of 5 in a first analysis.

And I would also welcome reflections from Colombian friends on how these criteria would apply to our current situation here....