THINK OF Eva Ligeti as the province's environmental watchdog - well, not just her alone - a staff of 18 at the Environmental Commissioner's Office of Ontario help out too.

   Their job is to keep an eye cocked on 13 provincial ministries and make sure they comply with the province's Environmental Bill of Rights. It's been a long journey from the day when Ligeti (LLM'89) was a York fine arts major. Now she's Ontario's first Environmental Commissioner.

   In the '70s Ligeti dropped out of fine arts (even though she described it as "fabulous"), to enrol in law at the University of Windsor. Later she came back to Osgoode Hall Law School to do her master's.

   In 1994 she was chosen as Commissioner from among 360 candidates by an all-party committee of the legislature. Today she describes herself as a kind of "combination ombudsman and auditor" on the environmental front, making sure the government behaves itself. Her office also oversees procedures that protect "whistle-blowing" employees if they decide to bite the hand that pays them.

   "Lands for Life," the Ministry of Natural Resources' plans for 46 million hectares of Ontario wilderness, prompted Legeti to issue a public statement in 1998 that cautioned government to err on the side of preservation. "There is an enormous divide between [groups such as] the Federation of Ontario Naturalists, those who are trying to promote a sustainable harvest of pulp wood and lumber, and the people whose jobs depend on the harvest for their livelihood," she says. "The trade-offs are difficult."

   While Ligeti says she's still "a big fan of the arts," it's probably safe to say that her present job has her painting on a bigger public canvas than even she could have imagined.

Photo: Susan King