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The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972 both triggered the organization of environmental management in many countries and brought about the formation of an understanding of environmental protection on a national and international scale. Similarly, the Conference has been a starting point in terms of institutionalizing environmental management, creating legislation, and developing environmental policy practice in Turkey. When the institutional structure is examined, a process comes to the fore in which the central government is the main actor in terms of institutional, legal, and representation. Parallel to this, when the environmental protection perspective of the environmental management organization in question is considered, an understanding that prioritizes economic development draws attention. The main argument of this paper is that environmental management has a institutionally centralized, practically developmentalist nature that displays a continuity. In order to illuminate the centralist and developmentalist continuity, this process which started in 1973, is handled over a period of 50 years and changes in the institutional structure of environmental management are discussed. Afterwards, the legal sources that support environmental policies and the institutional structures are discussed, and their positioning on the axis of protection-development is debated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]