The following is some of what I shared during a recent conversation with Matt Pycroft on The Adventure Podcast’s ‘The Far Reaches’ series.
For a long time Mongabay existed in a way that was almost embarrassing to describe. People would write to ask about the organization and imagine an office somewhere with editors, departments and a structure that made sense. The reality was that it was just me and a laptop. Most days I was working long hours from home in pajamas, answering emails before heading to a job in Silicon Valley.
There was no plan. I did not start with the ambition of building a global newsroom. In fact, I would have been skeptical if someone had suggested that outcome. Mongabay began simply because I had written a book about tropical forests and the publisher was unwilling to commit the budget to put color photos in it. So I put the text online.
The internet was still young enough that such accidents could become projects.
Over time people began reading the site. I added more material, then occasional news articles. What struck me as I began traveling to report was that many of the environmental stories I encountered were rarely covered in a straightforward journalistic way. Advocacy organizations did important work, but their publications were understandably aimed at advancing a cause. Mainstream outlets did excellent reporting but did not always devote the space to focus on issues like wildlife trafficking in Madagascar or corruption tied to deforestation in remote provinces.
It seemed possible to do something simple: report these stories as journalism.
For several years the operation remained extremely small. Jeremy Hance eventually joined me, first as an intern and then as an staffer, and the two of us produced what must have looked like the output of a much larger organization. In truth it was mostly persistence and a willingness to learn as we went. When something failed, we tried something else.
Looking back, the most consequential decision was one that felt uncertain at the time. Around 2010 I realized many of the ideas I wanted to pursue did not fit a conventional advertising model. One example was creating an environmental news service in Indonesian. I had spent time reporting in the country and could see how much environmental degradation was linked to corruption and a lack of transparency. The people most affected by these issues were Indonesians themselves, yet there were few outlets covering them consistently.
The obvious problem was that I was not the person to do it. I do not speak Indonesian and have no claim to authority on those landscapes or communities. The path forward was to create a structure that provided resources to Indonesians to report on their own country.
So Mongabay became a nonprofit, and we launched the Indonesian newsroom with local journalists leading the work. Within a month it had become one of the most widely read environmental news sources in the country.
That experience changed how I think about journalism. The real strength of the organization was never the person who started it. It was the people closest to the stories. Local reporters understand risks, languages and social dynamics in ways an outsider rarely can. They know which questions to ask and which doors not to open.
Journalism in those contexts carries responsibilities that are easy to overlook. A reporter can leave after a story is published. The source remains. That reality shapes decisions about how a story is told.
Over time Mongabay expanded in other regions using the same idea: support local journalists and make the reporting freely available so it can travel widely. In Latin America, dozens of newspapers republish our work. Sometimes the audience that matters most is not the largest one. It may be a single official or community leader who encounters the reporting in their local paper or WhatsApp group.
When people ask how we measure impact, the answer is usually indirect. A story about illegal logging might lead to an investigation months later. A profile of a community conservation project might inspire another village to try the same approach. Rarely can we prove a straight line between the reporting and the outcome. Still, when those things happen, it reminds you that information can move quietly through the world and alter its course.
For many years our coverage focused heavily on problems. Environmental journalism naturally gravitates toward loss: forests cleared, species declining, rivers polluted. After a while I began hearing that Mongabay was “the most depressing site on the internet.” That was not the intention, but the criticism had some truth.
In the past decade we have tried to broaden the lens. Problems still matter, but so do the efforts people make to address them. Across the tropics there are communities restoring forests, developing agroforestry systems, or protecting rivers with almost no resources. When those stories circulate, something interesting happens: other communities reach out asking how they might replicate the idea.
Hope is not the same as optimism. It is closer to agency.
One of the most moving parts of this work has been encountering people whose accomplishments far exceed their circumstances. A farmer in rural India planting millions of trees over decades. A village in Indonesia building micro-hydropower systems that light homes without damming rivers. Individuals who never set out to be famous but changed their landscapes through patient effort.
Those examples make the future feel less abstract. Climate change, biodiversity loss and other global challenges can appear overwhelming when viewed from a distance. But when you watch a creek become clearer because a community protected its watershed, or see birds return to a restored forest, the scale becomes human again.
That perspective is what keeps me going. I did not expect Mongabay to become what it is today. If anything, its existence is a reminder that large things sometimes grow from modest beginnings.
A laptop, a book on the internet, a few people willing to tell stories that might otherwise be missed.
The lesson I draw from it is simple and somewhat reassuring. You do not have to solve everything at once. You just have to begin somewhere, keep learning, and allow others to carry the work further than you ever could alone.
