Rhett Ayers Butler
June 22 marks World Rainforest Day, launched in 2017 by Rainforest Partnership to highlight the critical role of tropical forests. These ecosystems stabilize the climate, regulate rainfall, store vast amounts of carbon, and support most of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity. Yet despite their importance, 2024 proved to be a devastating year. Fires ravaged millions of [Continue reading]
Takashi Amano, master of the underwater landscape, died ten years ago this August. A new photo exhibition honors his legacy. NOTE: The first time I saw photographs of Takashi Amano’s aquariums, it changed everything. The glass walls disappeared. Inside was not a tank, but a window into a living world—verdant, balanced, utterly alive. It was [Continue reading]
Five years on from the publication of The Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson finds little he would change in his sweeping speculative novel—aside from a regrettable mention of blockchain. “What I really meant was simply digital money,” he says, dismissing the term’s cryptocurrency baggage. But the core of the book remains intact: a [Continue reading]
There are those whose lives accumulate significance slowly, the way sediment builds into shoreline. And then there are those whose devotion etches meaning into every year. Shiloh Schulte, a biologist who spent his life chasing birds across hemispheres, belonged to the latter group. He died in the North Slope of Alaska when the helicopter he [Continue reading]
In the Yolŋu worldview, land and people are not separate things. They are interwoven—spirit, soil, and songline one and the same. Few embodied that unity more steadily than M Marika, a senior elder of the Rirratjiŋu clan, who died this month in north-east Arnhem Land. He was 64. For more than three decades, Mr Marika [Continue reading]
Fires raged across the Amazon rainforest, annihilating more than 4.6 million hectares of primary tropical forest—the most biodiverse and carbon-dense type of forest on Earth. That loss, larger than the size of Denmark, was more than twice the annual average between 2014 and 2023, according to data released last month by the World Resources Institute’s [Continue reading]
Coral reefs, the vibrant ecosystems that support roughly a quarter of marine life, are experiencing a period of unparalleled stress. Spanning less than 1% of the ocean floor, coral reefs are found in over 100 countries and territories, playing an essential role in coastal protection, food security, and the global carbon cycle. Yet, in recent [Continue reading]
If Derek Pomeroy said to meet him at 7am, you were expected to be there by exactly 7am—not a minute later. Punctuality was not just a preference; it was a principle. Whether in a zoology lab, a birdwatching field station, or over tea at Makerere University, order and discipline mattered. Behind that exacting standard, however, [Continue reading]
For Valmik Thapar, the tiger was never just a symbol of wild India. It was a living, breathing force—majestic, imperiled, and, to him, essential. His death on May 31st in New Delhi, from cancer, marks the end of a five-decade crusade to ensure that the world’s largest cat did not vanish from the subcontinent it [Continue reading]
In the often fractious landscape of environmental discourse, S. Gopikrishna Warrier is a steadying presence. As the editorial director of Mongabay-India, Warrier has spent the past seven years cultivating a newsroom that brings light, not heat, to India’s environmental challenges. His calm authority, born of nearly four decades in journalism and communications, has helped steer Mongabay’s [Continue reading]
On May 22—the International Day for Biological Diversity—conservationists, scientists, and governments alike reflect on the staggering variety of life on Earth and the urgent need to protect it. Biodiversity, broadly defined, refers to the variety and variability of life at all levels: ecosystems, species, and genetic diversity within species. It underpins everything from food systems [Continue reading]
Sebastião Salgado, the celebrated Brazilian photographer whose powerful black-and-white images captured the dignity of human labor and the fragility of the natural world, has died at the age of 81. A photographer whose work spanned the globe and crossed boundaries between photojournalism, social commentary, and environmental advocacy, Salgado’s life and career were defined by a [Continue reading]
Radheshyam Bishnoi, protector of India’s most vulnerable animals, died on May 24, 2025, aged 28. Radheshyam Bishnoi was born with a calling to save wildlife. From a young age, he was driven by a deep sense of responsibility to protect the fragile ecosystems around him, shaped by the strong environmental values of the Bishnoi community. [Continue reading]
Today, May 22, is the International Day for Biological Diversity. To mark the occasion, here’s a look at the world’s most biodiverse countries and territories, using two approaches: (1) total number of species (2) species richness relative to land or marine area These rankings are always contentious. People are often disappointed or upset when a [Continue reading]
Sandhya Sekar never intended to lead a newsroom. Trained as an ecologist, with a Ph.D. in the sciences and a later pivot into journalism, she simply followed her curiosity—first as a writer, then as an editor, and eventually, as the founding program director of Mongabay India. In the process, she helped create one of the country’s [Continue reading]
At the close of San Francisco Climate Week 2025, María Isabel Torres, Program Director of Mongabay Latam, shared how local journalism is driving environmental change across Latin America. Speaking as a Peruvian journalist based in Lima, María Isabel detailed investigations that have exposed hidden threats to both biodiversity and Indigenous communities. One investigation revealed 67 [Continue reading]
On a recent trip, Mongabay board member Debby Ng shared a story that keeps replaying in my mind. It’s been 19 years since her account, but it still cuts raw. I’m sharing it because I’ve witnessed losses like this too. Debby had joined a team of scientists from the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity to salvage [Continue reading]
In the summer of 2024, searing ocean temperatures devastated much of Mesoamerica’s coral. But in Honduras’s Tela Bay, a reef known as Cocalito remains improbably intact—dominated by elkhorn corals so robust they scrape the water’s surface. The survival of this reef is baffling. Elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata), once common across the Caribbean, has declined by [Continue reading]
When Marielle Ramires disclosed her diagnosis of cancer in December 2024, she chose honesty without despair, revealing vulnerability but emphasizing resilience. Her approach was pragmatic, yet deeply hopeful. “I embraced my destiny,” she wrote, taking each step “one drop at a time.” For a woman who dedicated her life to articulating collective struggles, her illness [Continue reading]
In a packed event held in Palo Alto at the end of SF Climate Week, Willie Shubert shared a compelling example of how Mongabay’s journalism is making a real-world impact. He described how Mongabay’s consistent, beat-focused coverage helped prevent the deforestation of 535,000 hectares of Amazon rainforest in Suriname—an area equivalent to more than 15% [Continue reading]
In a modest home on the edge of Bogotá, a forest lived in exile. Its canopy no longer rustled with wind or birdcall, but was redrawn leaf by leaf from memory, with ink and conviction. It existed not on maps or in satellite imagery, but on sheets of paper, in the hand of a man [Continue reading]
The ocean has long been treated as the world’s forgotten frontier—out of sight, out of mind, and dangerously overused. Yet efforts to reverse decades of neglect are gathering speed. Last week saw the launch of Revive Our Ocean, a new initiative aimed at helping coastal communities create marine protected areas (MPAs) to restore marine life [Continue reading]
Yet in conservation, too many strategies are still chosen based on trends, intuition, or tradition—not on what science actually shows. A few weeks ago, I posted about this challenge and highlighted the Conservation Effectiveness platform. Now, a group of us, led by Zuzana Burivalova, has published a related paper: We’ve made Conservation Effectiveness open to [Continue reading]
20 years ago, I started Mongabay News with a laptop, a dream, and a sense of urgency — here’s what’s next. Last month marked 20 years since I started Mongabay’s news service. In those early days, it was just me—working from my apartment or traveling with a laptop, publishing articles primarily about tropical forests. My [Continue reading]
In a farmhouse overlooking the Upper Delaware River, Barbara Yeaman found her life’s calling later than most. At 70, when many were winding down, she set about founding the Delaware Highlands Conservancy, a land trust that would eventually protect more than 20,000 acres of forests, farms, and wetlands. It was, she often said, simply a [Continue reading]