[2] She joined her mother when she traveled to Germany to study psychiatric techniques and there Adriana changed her focus to biology and specialized in botany and ecology.

[5] She formed Agrupación de Defensores del Bosque Nativo in 1994, a group whose founding members included well-known singers and poets as well as economist Manfred Max Neef and Bishop Bernardino Piñera.

[12] Following the controversial approval of petcoke for gas-fired generators over her objections,[13] Hoffmann resigned in October 2001, stating that she no longer felt she was supported by Lagos or the Ministers.

[14][15][16] During Pinochet's dictatorship, the government gave multinational timber firms unfettered access to Chilean forests and little incentive to process the lumber in-country.

[17] She was a vocal advocate for sustainable forest management in the country, arguing that ecotourism and value-added products like furniture lead to greater long-term revenue.

[18] Hoffmann wrote columns about ecology for El Mercurio in the 1990s[19] and opposed free trade agreements that would replace native forests with commercial tree plantations.

[3][22] For her research into Chilean flora and her work in environmental education, Hoffmann received the Luis Oyarzún Award from the Austral University of Chile in 2003.

[25] Among her works was La Tragedia del Bosque Chileno, which includes text and photographs that document illegal logging in Chilean forests.