Rhett Ayers Butler
I first encountered Philip Fearnside’s name while writing my book about tropical rainforests in the 1990s. His work seemed to come up whenever I searched for papers on deforestation, dams, and roads in the Amazon. Its depth and breadth stood out. Naturally, when I began conducting interviews for Mongabay’s news service in the mid-2000s, Fearnside [Continue reading]
Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, or INPE, detected 370 square kilometers of deforestation in May through its DETER alert system. That is down from 960 square kilometers in May 2025, a decline of about 61%. May is an important month in the Amazon deforestation calendar. It often marks the transition toward the drier season, [Continue reading]
For protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon, one basic question is often overlooked: is there enough money to manage what lies inside the boundary? A reserve may exist in law. It may appear on maps and in official counts of how much of Brazil is under protection. On the ground, management depends on staff, fuel, [Continue reading]
In the Amazon, a forest can remain on the map while losing much of what makes it function. Deforestation, carbon, protected areas, and tipping points are useful measures, but they do not fully explain why biodiversity continues to decline where laws exist, territories are recognized, and international pledges sound ambitious. Six gaps help explain the [Continue reading]
The rate of tropical primary forest loss fell sharply in 2025 after reaching a record high in 2024, but it’s too early for forest advocates to celebrate. According to new satellite data from the University of Maryland’s GLAD lab, presented by Global Forest Watch, tropical primary forest loss fell 36% from 2024’s record-breaking level. Nevertheless, [Continue reading]
Tropical forests can return quickly in appearance. A pasture left to regenerate may, within a few decades, look like forest again. What is less visible is how long full ecological recovery takes. Beneath the canopy, different species return at different rates, shaping a system that may resemble forest without yet functioning like one. A study [Continue reading]
Near Brazil’s Belo Monte dam, one of the world’s largest hydropower projects, the promise of abundant electricity has proved uneven. A household survey of 500 families in Altamira found that 86.8% experienced higher electricity costs after the plant began operating in 2016. Many riverside residents still endure outages, pay steep tariffs, or rely on diesel [Continue reading]
In the wake of Australia’s 2019–20 “Black Summer” bushfires, few questions have proved as persistent as how to coexist with fire on a warming continent. Governments promise resilience, communities demand safety, and industries facing shrinking markets search for new roles. Out of this convergence has emerged a flashpoint: the thinning of native forests. Mechanical thinning [Continue reading]
A deceptively simple question underlies many global environmental policies: where, exactly, are the world’s forests? A new study suggests the answer depends heavily on which map one consults—and that the differences are large enough to reshape climate targets, conservation priorities, and development spending. Researchers Sarah Castle, Peter Newton, Johan Oldekop, Kathy Baylis, and Daniel Miller [Continue reading]
Rainfall is often treated as a gift of geography — a function of latitude, oceans, and atmospheric circulation. Research increasingly suggests that in the tropics it is also a product of ecosystems. Forests do not merely receive rain; they help generate it, regulate its distribution, and sustain the conditions that allow it to persist. A [Continue reading]
For decades, a dominant argument for protecting forests has focused on carbon. Trees absorb carbon dioxide, store it in wood and soils, and slow the accumulation of greenhouse gases. A new scientific review argues this emphasis overlooks other ways forests shape climate and human well-being. Forests are not only a mitigation tool for the future [Continue reading]
Tree planting has become a favored response to environmental loss. Governments, companies, and philanthropies announce large targets with reassuring round numbers. Forests, after all, store carbon, shelter wildlife, and support livelihoods. Yet the details matter. Planting the wrong species, or planting trees where forests did not exist, can undermine both biodiversity and climate goals. That [Continue reading]
In parts of Indonesian Borneo, forests endure not because they are fenced or regulated, but because they are feared. Among the Iban people of Sungai Utik, large strangler fig trees are believed to house spirits that can mislead, sicken, or kill those who disturb them. The belief is not abstract. It is anchored in stories, [Continue reading]
On Friday, I published my annual “Year in Rainforests” on Mongabay. The process is always taxing and every year I swear will be the last. Here’s a summary of the piece. 2025 was a mixed year for the world’s tropical rainforests. In several countries, deforestation declined, sometimes sharply. At the same time, other forms of [Continue reading]
When Truphena Muthoni stepped up to a royal palm in Nyeri and wrapped her arms around its trunk, few expected her to stay there for three days. Even fewer thought the gesture would spark a national conversation. She is 22, softly spoken, and practiced in environmental advocacy. Yet her 72-hour embrace, now awaiting verification by [Continue reading]
Indonesia’s government has emphasized that the recent catastrophe in Sumatra was triggered by an extraordinary meteorological event. Cyclone Senyar formed in the Malacca Strait — where such storms are “extremely rare” — before unloading record rainfall on Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra. Scientists are cautious about attributing any single storm to climate change. Yet [Continue reading]
Reforestation has become a feel-good global rallying cry. From corporations touting “net zero” targets to philanthropies seeking visible impact, planting trees has become shorthand for planetary repair. Yet behind the glossy photos of saplings and smiling farmers lies a question few can answer with confidence: which organizations are actually doing it well? Karen D Holl, [Continue reading]
The Amazon is often treated as a single forest, yet the risks its people face from extreme weather vary sharply across borders. A new analysis by researchers from Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia and the United States suggests those risks are also widely undercounted. The team compiled more than 12,500 reports of storms, floods, landslides, droughts [Continue reading]
In the northern Peruvian Amazon, where the rivers run gold with silt and mercury, the Wampís Nation has grown tired of waiting for the state. Faced with illegal miners, loggers, and drug traffickers, the community has formed its own territorial guard, Charip, to patrol a stretch of rainforest roughly the size of Connecticut, reports Aimee [Continue reading]
Reforestation has become a feel-good global rallying cry. From corporations touting “net zero” targets to philanthropies seeking visible impact, planting trees has become shorthand for planetary repair. Yet behind the glossy photos of saplings and smiling farmers lies a question few can answer with confidence: which organizations are actually doing it well? Karen Holl, a [Continue reading]
I recently contributed a section on how to communicate about the Amazon for The Endangered Amazonia report, which came out this week in Spanish, Portuguese, and English. Here’s a brief summary of my contribution. From doom to agency: Talking about saving Amazonia Many stories about the Amazon read like elegies. Drought, smoke, lawlessness—each headline darker [Continue reading]
Heading into COP30, where tropical forests are set to be a central theme, it seemed worth looking today’s trajectories a little further forward and imagine where they might lead. Part 1 looked at possible fates of tropical forests. Part 2 is published here. The first act of the forest crisis was destruction. The second, if [Continue reading]
Heading into COP30, where tropical forests are set to be a central theme, I thought it would be interesting to consider today’s trends and imagine where they might lead. What follows are brief scenarios—some unlikely, others already taking shape for tropical forests. The vanishing state: Across parts of the Amazon, authority is slipping away. Illegal [Continue reading]
As the world’s attention turns toward COP30 in Belém next month, the story of Brazil’s Amazon is shifting—though not quite in a straightforward way. According to the government’s satellite monitoring system, INPE’s PRODES, deforestation in the “Legal Amazon” totaled 5,796 square kilometers in the 12 months ending July 31, 2025—an 11% drop from the previous [Continue reading]
The world’s forests tell two stories at once. Even as chainsaws advance, new trees are rising in their wake. More than 11 million hectares of tropical moist forest—an area roughly the size of Cuba—were in some stage of natural regrowth between 2015 and 2021, according to the Forest Declaration Assessment 2025. Latin America shows the [Continue reading]