Dua was born in Ghent in 1952 and had her first close contact with nature as a bird watcher and member of the Youth Association for Nature and Environment, still a relatively niche interest in the early 1970s. She studied agriculture at Ghent University, going on to earn a doctorate in agricultural sciences. Following a period as a university researcher, she went to work for what is now the Flemish nature and forestries agency.

In 1984 she joined Agalev, the Flemish ecology party set up in 1979, which changed its name to Groen! in 2003. Dua first won a seat on the Ghent city council in 1989, then was elected to the federal parliament two years later, switching to the Flemish parliament in 1995 after the first direct elections to that body.

Agalev suffered a severe defeat in the 2003 elections, leading to the change of name. Dua took over as the first woman president of the party. Under her leadership, Groen! made it back into the federal parliament in 2007. The party won five seats in last year's election and has seven seats in the Flemish parliament. Current Groen! president, Wouter Van Besien, now has a place at the negotiating table in talks to form a new government.

There she made a name for herself as a thorn in the side of environment minister Theo Kelchtermans, whose job she was to take over after the election of 1999. She also sat on the Rwanda commission and took an active part in protests against French nuclear testing on the Pacific coral island of Mururoa.

"At a certain point you have to turn the page, especially if you've held important posts in the party," Dua said last week. "The torch has been passed. I have every faith in the future." She has recently been named as an unpaid consultant for the Centre for Sustainable Development (CDO) at Ghent University.

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