In the Chilean environmental legal system, the environmental courts were conceived as a forum that would concentrate environmental discussions, particularly in challenging acts of the Administration. However, in parallel to this institutional framework, the so-called recurso de protección still plays a significant role. This paper analyzes the functioning of this constitutional action in the ten years of operation of the system (2013-2023), concluding that (i) the most substantive costs of this bifurcated system is the uniformity in judicial decisions by having the Supreme Court hear environmental matters by way both of cassation and appeal; and that (ii) criticisms of the precariousness of the protection procedure are today unjustified, being virtually the same procedure for claims before the environmental courts. There are good reasons to predict that this bifurcation will intensify in the coming years with the new environmental laws, and that there are also good reasons to think about the organic unification of the challenge forums.