Over the last ten years, organized civil society has gained a growing presence in the discussion, formulation and implementation of public policies in Brazil. Representing a mosaic of multi-faceted institutions endowed with a singular capacity to implement local actions from a global perspective, we focus particularly on environmentalist NGOs that act in the Bay of Guanabara, an estuary of great importance for the state of Rio de Janeiro that is subjected to aggression on a daily basis. Our findings indicate that several projects on environmental preservation or recuperation that have been developed with the participation of these NGOs mobilize volunteers and the media, sensitize the population to ecological issues and contribute to the education of low income urban communities, providing guidelines for a holistic relationship between humans and the environment and constituting new social actors. In this way, they provide more efficient means for public intervention in the recovery of the environmental quality of the estuary's eco-systems.
public policies; non-governmental organizations; Guanabara Bay; political participation; civil society
