At the beginning of two decades of government, political parties from the Concertacion chose the environment as a privileged field of action. They wanted to differentiate themselves from the neglect of the authoritarian regime and respect Chile’s international commitments. Chile’s development style, one which relies on the exploitation of natural resources, causes deep modifications of the environment and the instruments, namely the study of environmental impact, are not sufficient to prevent them. Nevertheless, they settled mechanisms to deal with environmental issues, but still remain under the expectations of part of the society. The creation of the Ministry of the Environment allows to make the whole set of instruments more rational and show good results in international comparisons, but it does not solve the main problems.