ABSTRACT
This chapter explores processes of nongovernmental organizations (NGO) institutional legitimization vis-a-vis a global discourse on environmental issues. It uses the evolution of various nongovernmental activities as related to United Nations' (UN) conferences pertaining to the environment to help shape the discourse on the emerging roles of NGOs in shaping environmental activities by governments and citizens around the world. The chapter examines NGO growth and development in the global environmental discourse with a brief examination of NGO emergence within a global civic and political context over the past several decades. It examines the legitimization and institutional roles of NGOs in environmental issues. The chapter presents an overview of the changing scope of activities of NGOs within an evolving UN environmental discourse that stretches between the UN Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm in 1972, and the Summit on Sustainable Development, held in Johannesburg in 2002.
