A regional environmental evaluation commission in Chile on Wednesday approved a controversial mining project close to a national reserve that is home to a vulnerable species of penguin, despite protests from activists.

The project was previously rejected in 2017 under the government of socialist ex-president Michelle Bachelet for environmental reasons.

But a year later, under the new government of right-wing billionaire President Sebastian Pinera, a court ordered a new environmental impact study.

The project, proposed by Chilean mining company Andes Iron, requires a $2.5 billion dollar investment for the construction of open-air mines and a port.

The commission in Coquimbo, a city 450 kilometers (280 miles) to the north of Santiago and where the project is situated, approved the impact study by 11 votes to one.

It now goes to the council of ministers, where it would need final approval.

Opposition legislator Marcelo Diaz hit out at the "acceleration of a process to get it tied up before the end of this government," with elections due in November.

One of Andes Iron's owners is allegedly a close friend of Pinera.

The Oceana NGO says the project threatens "one of the most important marine ecosystems in the world, known throughout the national and international scientific community as a hotspot of biodiversity that must be protected."

The mines and port would be built close to the national reserve where 80 percent of the world's Humboldt penguins live.

The reserve was created in 1990 around three islands between the regions of Atacama and Coquimbo in order to protect a unique ecosystem that includes the penguins, which live only in Chile and Peru.

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