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Rhett Ayers Butler
2020 was supposed to be a landmark year for taking stock on climate and biodiversity commitments and determining how societies move forward to address the world’s most pressing problems. Instead, the COVID-19 pandemic intervened, leading to the postponement or cancellation of many events, including the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), which was […]
David Bonderman is one of the best known figures in private equity, having made his name and fortune by taking over undervalued companies and turning them around. Bonderman, the founding partner of TPG Capital (formerly Texas Pacific Group) and its affiliate Newbridge Capital, has bought and sold companies ranging from Continental Airlines to Petco to […]
Over the past twenty years the concept of “tipping points” has become more familiar to the public. Tipping points are critical thresholds at which small changes can lead to dramatic shifts in the state of the entire system. From a climate standpoint, the melting of Arctic sea ice is a simple example. As sea ice […]
Between the pandemic, rising food insecurity and poverty, and catastrophic disasters like wildfires, storms and droughts, 2020 was a year of challenges that prompted widespread calls for systemic change in how we interact with one another, with other species, and with the environment. Bringing about such changes will require transforming how we produce food and […]
2020 was a rough year for tropical rainforest conservation efforts, as explained in Mongabay’s year-end wrap-up on rainforests. So what’s in store for 2021? Here are 11 things to watch. Post COVID recovery The pandemic itself presented incredible challenges for conservation, including crushing ecotourism-based livelihood models, creating hardships for local communities and researchers, pushing NGOs to pull out of […]
Between the pandemic, widespread environmental policy setbacks, devastating fires and storms, civil strife, and rising authoritarianism, 2020 was a challenging year. Mongabay persevered through these difficult times, supporting its staff and contributor network, while continuing to produce impactful reporting. Five topline successes in 2020 Navigating the pandemic: In these times of hardship and great uncertainty, […]
Like virtually everything in 2020, COVID-19 defined the year for tropical rainforests. 2020 was supposed to be a make-or-break year for tropical forests. It was the year when global leaders were scheduled to come together to assess the past decade’s progress and set the climate and biodiversity agendas for the next decade. These included emissions […]
It is impossible to capture all of 2020’s losses between the global pandemic, the impacts of natural disasters often exacerbated by human activities, and the atrocities committed against environmental defenders. Every death is of course notable, but this list acknowledges a few of the 2020 deaths that carry special significance to the conservation community. See […]
2020 is a year that many people would like to forget. Here’s a look at 10 of the biggest environmental storylines to remember. The COVID-19 pandemic The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic transcended virtually everything in 2020, including the environment, from canceled summits on climate and biodiversity to a temporary dip in air pollution and greenhouse gas […]
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 has been the year of the climate commitment, with a number of companies and governments announcing plans to reduce carbon emissions by a specified level at some point in the future. One of the boldest commitments to date has come from the tech giant Microsoft, which in January pledged to be […]
Since hosting the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2015 which resulted in the Paris Climate Agreement, France has become a leading proponent for tropical forest conservation. This effort has included establishing a National Strategy to Combat Imported Deforestation (SNDI) to effectively apply a zero deforestation policy to commodities produced at the expense of forests in the […]
2020 was supposed to be the year that governments, business leaders and civil society came together to report back on the past decade’s worth of progress on addressing the biodiversity crisis. But the COVID-19 pandemic intervened and most of the big meetings scheduled for 2020 were scaled down or postponed until 2021. But that doesn’t […]
More than 21 years ago I established Mongabay out of my love for nature and wildlife. Today the endeavor has grown far beyond what I could have ever imagined with a team of dedicated journalists spanning the world producing content in several languages, monthly readership numbering in the millions, and tangible real-world impacts. I’m now pleased […]
In August this year, a fleet of around 300 Chinese fishing vessels attracted international attention when they congregated just outside Ecuador’s territorial waters around the famed Galápagos Islands. Said to be fishing for squid, the fleet’s checkered past raised concerns about the possibility the ships were actually targeting sharks and other threatened species. While there was great […]
If you were born in the 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s in the United States or Canada, there’s a good chance you are familiar with the song “Baby Beluga.” The song, which is about a young whale swimming in the ocean with its mother, was written by Raffi Cavoukian, a Canadian singer-lyricist who was once called […]
Today, maps are a critical part of nearly all place-based conservation efforts. Maps enable scientists and conservation practitioners to identify where they operate, allocate resources, organize and present data, and communicate the results of their work. It’s hard to imagine modern-day conservation without maps. Before the age of computers, map-making was typically the domain of […]
This week, scientists from James Cook University in Australia announced the discovery of a previously unknown detached coral reef in the Great Barrier Reef. It was the first new reef to be discovered in the area since the late 1800s. The discovery was made by an underwater robot launched by a team aboard the Falkor, a research […]
In the decade following the end of the U.S. Civil War, a group of people led by physician and horticulturist John Aston Warder established the American Forestry Association to create a constituency for protecting the country’s fast-disappearing forests. The group advocated for better stewardship of forests, including the creation of forest reserves to maintain timber […]
The second half of the 20th century was a time of unprecedented change in the Amazon rainforest. The ecosystem was opened up by government road-building and colonization schemes in the 1970s and 1980s, unleashing a spasm of large-scale deforestation unlike anything seen in human history. But that period was also characterized by a great expansion […]
2020 was supposed to be the year that the world assessed progress on a decade’s worth of effort to stave off the sixth mass extinction — the first extinction driven by the activities of a single species — and set ambitious new targets for conservation. But the COVID-19 pandemic intervened, leading to postponement of the […]
Until recently, protecting the environment was a bipartisan issue for Americans. But in an era marked by bitter divides, this is no longer the case. Bruce Babbitt, former governor of Arizona and Secretary of the Interior in the Clinton Administration, believes that environmental protection can again be a unifying issue for Americans. But to get […]
Wade Davis is a celebrated anthropologist, ethnobotanist, photographer, and author who has written thought-provoking accounts of indigenous cultures around the world. These have ranged from The Serpent and the Rainbow about the “zombies” in Haitian vodoun religion to One River about the explorations of famed ethnobotanist Richard Evan Schultes who studied the remarkable knowledge of traditional shamans in the […]
Bloomberg Philanthropies, the foundation launched by businessman and former New York City mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, is one of the world’s largest charitable organizations. According to the Foundation Center, the foundation’s $7.15 billion in assets in 2015 made it the 10th largest foundation in the United States that year. Bloomberg says it distributed $3.3 billion […]
Over the past decade perhaps no major diversified consumer products company has done more to burnish its sustainability credentials than Unilever, the 91-year-old conglomerate that owns brands ranging from Dove soap to Lipton tea to Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. A driving force behind this shift was Paul Polman, who took the helm of the […]
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is one of the largest and most influential environmental funders in the world. Since its inception in 1992, the GEF has provided more than $20 billion in grants for over 4,800 projects and 170 countries, engaging some 24,000 civil society and community groups. Yet the institution remains less well known to […]