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The Business of Mongabay

Pursuing impact over pageviews

As noted before, shifting Mongabay from a for-profit to a nonprofit granted us the privilege to prioritize impact over chasing clicks. This move freed us to give away our stories and view other media outlets as potential partners rather than competitors. If our articles are republished, that helps us fulfill our mission by helping inform […]

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Media appearances

Appearance on the Mongabay Newscast

This week the Mongabay Newscast published an interview with me about developments in the Amazon, my recent travels, and what’s upcoming for Mongabay.

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Media appearances

Appearance on Mark Plotkin’s “Plants of the Gods” podcast

A few months ago I was a guest on Dr. Mark Plotkin’s “Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and Conservation” podcast which explores medicinal plants, Indigenous cultures, and conservation. Plotkin is a conservationist, ethnobotanist, and author who co-founded the Amazon Conservation Team and has won many accolades. I’ve interviewed Plotkin for Mongabay in the […]

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Media appearances The Business of Mongabay

An interview with Sinc (Ciencia Contada en Español)

An interview with Alejandro Muñoz for Sinc (Ciencia Contada en Español): “No vamos detrás del clic, nuestro periodismo busca mejoras reales en el medioambiente”. A few extracts translated from from the interview: Do you think interest in environmental journalism has increased? Yes. I think the effects of environmental degradation are more evident than ever. This […]

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Talks

Talks at UT Austin

In September I did several talks at the University of Texas at Austin thanks to the Texas Tropical Network. The Texas Tropical Network was inspired by the Bay Area Tropical Forest Network (BATFN), a group I co-founded in 2009 that held about 100 events around the Bay Area over a ten-year period. Texas Tropical Network […]

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Talks The Business of Mongabay

Stories from Nature’s frontline – Talk in the San Francisco Bay Area

In October 2023 in an event at Holbrook Palmer Park in Atherton, CA, I spoke about conservation journalism in the world’s most biodiverse places. I talked about my journey of growing Mongabay from a personal passion project into a multinational nonprofit media organization that covers critical issues affecting wildlife, wild places, and communities globally. I […]

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Media appearances

Spanish media coverage of the BBVA Biophilia Award

Spanish media published multiple stories about Mongabay winning the 2023 Biophilia Award. Here are two examples: La Fundación BBVA galardona a ‘Mongabay’ por crear una plataforma mundial de periodismo ambiental (ABC.es) Rhett Butler, fundador de la web ambiental Mongabay: “La gente prefiere creer lo que encaja con su visión del mundo” (El Mundo)

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Announcements

Mongabay wins the Biophilia Award for Environmental Communication

This week we learned that Mongabay won the BBVA Foundation’s 5th Biophilia Award for Environmental Communication. Mongabay was selected “for its outstanding track record in communicating on nature and biodiversity conservation, especially in the countries of the Global South, thanks to the contributions of over 800 journalists, scientists and other correspondents in more than 80 […]

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The Business of Mongabay

Navigating difficult news industry trends

“How are you responding to challenging trends in the news industry?” To provide background context in answering this frequently asked question, I usually direct people to the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report and materials from the Pew Research Center. Here are a few key data points from these resources I find particularly relevant: ☑ Decline in […]

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The Business of Mongabay

A recap of our 2030 roadmap

Over the past few months, via LinkedIn I’ve shared a series of posts on Mongabay’s 2030 roadmap. Here’s a recap of some of the key points: What is Mongabay? Mongabay is a nonprofit, independent media organization that focuses on issues at the intersection of people and nature. We collaborate with journalists worldwide to highlight stories […]

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The Business of Mongabay

Helping ensure environmental journalism provides a decent and dignified living

Working to ensure that environmental journalism is a viable career option that provides a decent and dignified living. Advertising-based media is struggling, resulting in fewer resources for enterprise reporting, such as in-depth investigations. This decline also means fewer paid opportunities for journalists. The challenges are arguably even more acute for journalists who focus on environmental […]

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The Business of Mongabay

Will Elon Musk’s decision to block news links accelerate the abandonment of the platform by environmentalists?

This week, Elon Musk confirmed that the social media platform, X — formerly known as Twitter — plans to stop displaying news article headlines or text within links. Will this decision accelerate the abandonment of the platform by environmentalists? The decline of “Environmental Twitter,” a segment of 380,000 users who frequently discussed climate change and […]

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The Business of Mongabay

LinkedIn becomes Mongabay’s top source of traffic (excluding search)

LinkedIn has become our top source for English-language readership via social media. Given the inquiries about social media following my post on audience engagement (https://bit.ly/3rW7QBn), I analyzed the year-to-date social media data for Mongabay’s English-language news website, https://news.mongabay.com. Surprisingly, visitors arriving via LinkedIn links collectively spent 77,070 hours reading our news articles in the first seven […]

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The Business of Mongabay

Reducing the risk of environmental journalism

“You are the enemy.” “You must stop writing about palm oil.” Such were the words directed at me by a Malaysian palm oil company executive, flanked by two bodyguards, in an elevator in the late 2000s. Though it wasn’t the most menacing incident I’ve encountered in my reporting (e.g. https://bit.ly/44PtpSL), it epitomizes the intimidation journalists regularly […]

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Journal publications

How we evaluate the effectiveness of forest conservation is changing

How we evaluate the effectiveness of forest conservation is changing. In short, compared to just a few years ago, we possess a much better grasp of what works and what doesn’t. This development is one of the key takeaways from a paper Zuzana Burivalova, Natalie Yoh, H S Sathya Chandra Sagar, Eddie Game, and myself recently published in Current […]

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Mongabay Features

Interview with Monica P. Medina of WCS

In June, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced Monica P. Medina as its new President and CEO. Medina is the first woman to take the helm at WCS and brings with her a wealth of experience from numerous esteemed roles across a variety of institutions, including key leadership positions in three presidential administrations. It’s easy to get […]

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The Business of Mongabay

What’s the secret to securing funding from foundations?

What’s the secret to securing funding from foundations? This question, in various forms, has been asked of me a lot since my LinkedIn post about the fundraising component of Mongabay‘s strategic plan (https://bit.ly/3NVeRd2) a few days ago. To be clear, I don’t claim to be an expert in this field. However, I can certainly share insights […]

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The Business of Mongabay

Mongabay’s plan for financial sustainability

In recent months, Vice filed for bankruptcy, National Geographic fired its remaining staff writers, BuzzFeed closed its Pulitzer Prize-winning news division, MTV News shut down, The New York Times closed its sports desk, while The LA Times, Insider, and major TV and cable news networks made deep cuts to their newsrooms. In short, advertising-dependent news […]

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The Business of Mongabay

How we plan to strengthen Mongabay’s impact by focusing on meaningful audience engagement

This post is the third in a series on Mongabay’s recently published 2030 plan. This post focuses on audience engagement. Earlier posts include: Addressing the planetary challenges we collectively face won’t be simple. As a journalism organization, Mongabay plays a crucial role by providing news and inspiration from nature’s frontlines. Our goal is to share […]

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The Business of Mongabay

Mongabay’s editorial priorities going forward

This post is the second in a series on Mongabay’s recently published 2030 plan. This post focuses on Mongabay’s editorial agenda. One of Mongabay’s key strengths is our ability to report globally on nature conservation and biodiversity, presenting nuanced stories from a network of local journalists. As a newsroom, we often prioritize the science behind […]

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Announcements

150,000+ nature photos added to the site

Over the weekend I migrated my photo collection from travel.mongabay.com to pictures.butlernature.com. Mongabay’s growing maturity as an institution is the motivation for this action. The site has evolved from a collection of personal projects to a multinational news organization. Therefore it makes sense to discontinue or migrate some of the projects that are no longer […]

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Media appearances

Sun Valley Forum appearances, 2023

Last week I participated in the Sun Valley Forum. Beyond meeting lots of interesting and inspirational people, I did a fireside chat with the forum’s founder Aimée Christensen on the state of reporting from Nature’s frontline; conducted interviews with author David Ewing Duncan and artist/activist Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri; and moderated the “Mega Deals For Nature” panel […]

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The Business of Mongabay

Mongabay’s 2030 roadmap

Mongabay has experienced significant growth since its establishment in 1999, evolving from a single-person rainforest website into a multinational news organization with hundreds of staff and contributing journalists. We have made tremendous progress, thanks to our newsroom’s ability to produce original journalism that creates tangible impact. However, the magnitude of the global challenges we face […]

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Journal publications

Current Biology paper: Broadening the focus of forest conservation beyond carbon

A paper authored by Zuzana Buřivalová, Natalie Yoh, H.S. Sathya Chandra Sagar, Edward T. Game, and myself was published today in Current Biology. Titled, Broadening the focus of forest conservation beyond carbon, the paper is a review of recent trends in forest conservation, with a focus on the tropics. Here’s the summary of the paper: […]

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Mongabay Features

An interview with Jeff Morgan

Last December, delegates from nearly 200 governments adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal, Canada. This agreement aims to conserve 30 percent of the earth by 2030 – a goal colloquially known as “30×30”. But it’s one thing to set aside areas for conservation and another to […]