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Indigenous peoples in Southeast Asia have organized on issues that affect their rights at the local, national, regional and global level. This article argues that one important component of the rise of this activism is the presence of regional scalar bridging organizations that link activism across scales and support the growth of Indigenous movements by providing access to global and regional opportunities for action. In Southeast Asia, the Asian Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP) and Tebtebba play this role through their presence in global political arenas and their many activities with partner organizations in the region. Drawing on social movement theory, this article outlines how regional social movement organizations potentially support global activism in the Global South by scale bridging in the areas of (1) resource mobilization, (2) creation of political spaces and opportunities and (3) the diffusion of ideas. To illustrate this, the case of Indigenous peoples activism on climate change in Southeast Asia is presented through an examination of the work done in these three areas by the Asian Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP) and Tebtebba [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at changing patterns of Japanese environmental Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) active in the international sphere and argues that changes in the international realm provided activists new opportunities and frameworks that allowed them to overcome steep domestic organizational barriers and participate in new activities focused on global environmental issues. Since the late 1980's, there has been a sudden rise in the number of advocacy NGOs in Japan involved in global and transnational environmental issues. This was a surprising development considering the difficult domestic conditions faced by social activists in Japan trying to organize at the national level. To explain these recent changes, this article looks to three international processes; international opportunities, transnational diffusion and international socialization of state actors. Using the case of Kiko Forum, a Japanese network organization created in 1996 to mobilize support for ambitious greenhouse gas reductions, this article traces how these three processes provided new external resources for activists and altered domestic structures themselves.