Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries.

At the close of SF Climate Week, 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 clandestine airstrips built deep in the Peruvian Amazon to support drug trafficking.

Working with satellite analysis experts including Earth Genome, Mongabay combined AI, drone footage, and interviews with more than 60 local sources to uncover the network. Our reporting, which took a year to complete, sparked national and international media coverage, caught the attention of lawmakers and authorities, and empowered Indigenous leaders with evidence to advocate for protections.

María Isabel also highlighted how Mongabay Latam documented more than 8,000 oil contamination sites across four Amazonian countries, of which 600 are located inside Indigenous territories or protected areas.

In the Gulf of Mexico, Mongabay’s reporting exposed that nearly 60% of oil spills in recent years, previously dismissed by companies as “natural emissions,” were in fact human-caused.

And in the open seas, Mongabay has tracked the movements of 200 Chinese fishing vessels operating just outside Latin American countries’ maritime borders — raising serious concerns about marine biodiversity loss near places like the Galápagos Islands.

Across all this work, María Isabel emphasized the importance of amplifying the voices of Indigenous peoples — not just as victims, but as defenders and leaders actively protecting the rainforest.

In Latin America, Mongabay Latam now partners with more than 70 influential regional media outlets, maximizing the reach and impact of these investigations.

It’s a powerful reminder: Locally grounded, solutions-driven journalism can shift narratives, drive accountability, and support frontline communities.

Banner image: Mongabay’s reporting has sparked national and international media coverage, caught the attention of lawmakers and authorities, and empowered Indigenous leaders with evidence to advocate for protections.

Peatlands are one of the world’s biggest carbon sinks. These naturally waterlogged boggy swamps can hold thousands of years’ worth of compressed, partially decomposed vegetation matter — despite covering just 3-4% of Earth’s land surface, they’re thought to store more carbon per area than the world’s forests combined.

In honor of World Peatland Day on June 2 we present three recent Mongabay stories that shed light on this critical ecosystem.

World’s peatlands are underprotected

Peatlands only function well as carbon sinks if they remain wet and undisturbed, Mongabay’s John Cannon reported recently. As people drain or burn peatlands, often to make way for agriculture, peatlands turn from a carbon sink into a carbon source.

Researchers recently found that only about 25% of peatlands in the tropic and temperate regions, and 11% of boreal peatlands, have some form of protection, Canon reported. Additionally, more than 25% of peatlands, covering some 1.1 million square kilometers (about 425,000 square miles), overlap with Indigenous territories.

Researchers told Cannon that there are “massive benefits” to protecting and restoring peatlands, especially given the density of carbon that peatlands hold on a relatively small portion of the planet. “The return on investment is quite high,” said study lead author Kemen Austin.

Colombia’s unexpected peatlands

A recent study in Colombia found peatlands are more widespread than previously known, making the country South America’s second-largest peat reserve, after Peru, contributor Erik Iverson reported for Mongabay.

Researchers took sediment cores in 100 wetlands and combined that data with satellite imagery to build a model to predict other peat-forming wetlands in the country.

The researchers estimated that Colombia’s peatlands hold 1.9 billion metric tons of carbon, or as much as 70 years’ worth of carbon emissions from fossil fuels in Colombia.

Moreover, they found peat in unexpected ecosystems, including Colombia’s seasonally dry Llanos and nutrient-poor white-sand forests, which are home to a unique type of stunted forest. Both findings suggest there may be more undiscovered peatlands in similar ecosystems across other South American countries.

Flooding risk for Indonesia’s peatlands

In Indonesia, unchecked exploitation has left nearly half of the country’s peatlands vulnerable to flooding, Mongabay’s Hans Nichols Jong reported recently.

Peatlands can absorb 100-1,300% of their dry weight in water. In comparison mineral soils typically absorb only 20-30%. However, peatlands across Indonesia have been drained or burned to make way for industrial oil palm or pulpwood plantations. The degradation has compromised their ability to act like a sponge and efficiently absorb water. Instead of soaking up water, standing water on these peatlands now become uncontrolled runoff, causing flooding in nearby areas, Jong reported.

“The floods occurring are not a natural cycle commonly found in peatland ecosystems,” said Wahyu Perdana from the peatland watchdog group Pantau Gambut. “These floods result from peatland degradation due to improper land use and the mismanagement of peatland functions.”

Banner image: Peatland deforestation in Indonesia. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

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, was a deeper devotion: to science, to Uganda’s biodiversity, and above all, to the generations of African conservationists he helped train and shape.

Pomeroy arrived in Uganda in 1969 to study marabou storks. He stayed for most of his life. What began as ornithological curiosity became a lifelong project of institution-building, mentoring, and record-keeping. His field notes on birds, gathered across decades, became the backbone of the Bird Atlas of Uganda and the National Biodiversity Data Bank. He played a pivotal role in founding the Makerere University Institute of Environment and Natural Resources (MUIENR), a center that now shapes the country’s environmental policy and research.

Through civil unrest, political transitions, and global shifts in conservation priorities, Pomeroy remained a constant. He trained hundreds of students—many of whom now lead major conservation efforts in Uganda and beyond. His greatest legacy may not lie in peer-reviewed journals or global assessments, but in the lives he shaped. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, one of Uganda’s leading wildlife veterinarians, remembered him as a mentor who encouraged her earliest efforts and celebrated her success. Edward Okot Omoya, now a professor, put it simply: “He was more than a supervisor. He was a father figure.” Others recall how he secured funding for dozens of students who might never have studied conservation otherwise. From senior professors to field biologists just starting out, the story was the same: a demanding, generous, and utterly committed teacher.

He published widely, including on bird population dynamics, wetland ecology, and biodiversity indicators, often ahead of global trends. His research illuminated the effects of agriculture on wildlife long before “sustainable landscapes” became a buzzword. A member of the IUCN’s Stork, Ibis, and Spoonbill Specialist Group, he saw local data as vital to global conservation.

Even in his final years, his curiosity never waned. At 88, he was still in the field, counting vultures in Murchison Falls National Park. He was working on several papers when he died.

“He never stopped being interested in life,” wrote Andrew Plumptre, Head of the Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) Secretariat.

Pomeroy returned to the UK only in 2023. He died, fittingly, with his work unfinished but well-laid for others to continue.

In a region where expertise was once exported, he helped root it firmly in place. For many, Derek Pomeroy didn’t just teach the study of birds. He taught them to stay, to build, and to give back.

Header image: By Andrew Plumptre

A new study identifies key regions across the U.S. where investments can deliver triple benefits for people, the climate and birds. These conservation sweet spots support significant numbers of more than half of U.S. bird species, including 75% of forest birds.

“We wanted to think about how places that we might focus our conservation attention might provide co-benefits for biodiversity, including birds, as well as for people,” lead author Rachel Neugarten from the Wildlife Conservation Society told Mongabay. “One of the big takeaways is that these win-win-wins do exist.”

Researchers used data from a previous study that mapped priority areas in the U.S. for 11 different ecosystem services, including pollination, recreation, carbon storage and flood mitigation. They then combined that information with abundance data on 479 bird species across the U.S. from eBird, a citizen science biodiversity data set.

Overlaying bird population data with information about ecosystem service and carbon storage priority areas, researchers found regions that benefit people, the climate and birds the most are the Appalachian Mountains, New England, the southeastern U.S., the Ozarks and the Sierra and Cascade mountain ranges — all densely forested areas.

“Forests are ecosystem service machines. …The number of benefits they provide is really diverse, and the magnitude of the benefits are really high,” Neugarten said, referring to how forests store vast amounts of carbon, provide timber, reduce floods, improve water quality and provide recreation.

The priority areas identified in the study host a sizable population of nearly half of all U.S. bird species and more than 75% of forest bird species, including several “tipping point species” — those that have lost nearly half of their population in the last 50 years and continue to decline. For example, 91% of the cerulean warbler (Setophaga cerulea) population lives in ecosystem services priority areas and 94% lives in carbon priority areas.

However, wetland and arid land birds, such as LeConte’s thrasher (Toxostoma lecontei), appear to have less overlap with important ecosystem service and carbon benefit areas compared with forest birds. Wetlands provide immense ecosystem services and carbon benefits, but Neugarten notes that forests are geographically larger than wetlands and provide such high levels of ecosystem benefits that they likely drown out contributions from wetlands and coastal areas in the analysis.

“These win-win-wins are not guaranteed,” Neugarten said of the finding, as conservation investments in wetlands and coastal areas may benefit some birds but not others.

In a world where conservation funding is shrinking and birds are declining at an alarming rate, the researchers say their findings can help target conservation actions in areas that maximize benefits for people, climate and biodiversity.

“We have to be strategic about where we work,” Jon Fisher at the Pew Charitable Trusts, who was not involved in the study, told Mongabay by email. “This kind of research is useful to inform where and how we work.”

Banner image: Cerulean warbler by Alan Schimierer via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)

The U.K. recognized the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius’ claim to the Chagos Archipelago in an agreement signed May 22.

While Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam praised the deal, it elicited mixed reactions from many Chagossians, the islands’ original inhabitants. Starting in 1968, they were displaced from the chain of islands by British colonial rulers to set up a U.S. military base on Diego Garcia, the archipelago’s largest island. For years, Chagossians have demanded the right to return to their island homes.

The Chagos archipelago includes roughly 60 islands in the central Indian Ocean. Image by Andrés Alegría/Mongabay.

In 2010, the U.K. unilaterally established a marine protected area (MPA) in Chagos, an expanse of 640,000 square kilometers (245,000 square miles). It’s one of the world’s largest no-take MPAs and home to nearly 800 fish species, including 50 types of sharks, roughly 18 species of seabirds and nearly 300 species of reef-building corals, considered some of the healthiest reefs in the world.

However, the MPA was criticized by Chagossians as a pretext to keep Chagossians out and an example of ocean grabbing.

Most Chagossians were forcibly displaced to Mauritius or neighboring Seychelles. Some have made the U.K. their home.

“We have been fighting for many years for our right to return and reparations,” Olivier Bancoult, who heads the Chagos Refugees Group based in Mauritius, told Mongabay. “Instead of having nothing, it’s better we just take this opportunity.”

The decision to recognize Mauritian claims over the Chagos has faced opposition from some Chagossians living in the U.K. “I was not consulted, and these are not my demands,” Bernadette Dugasse, a Chagossian now living in London, told Mongabay. She and another Chagossian, Bertrice Pompe, launched a legal challenge to stop the deal, saying it will not allow them to return to their homes in Diego Garcia. A U.K. court rejected their challenge.

“Our human rights have been violated again and again,” Dugasse said. “I don’t think I will ever be able to settle on my birthplace.”

Mauritius can implement a resettlement program on all the islands except Diego Garcia, which, as a military base, will remain under U.K. control. “There would be no circumstances in which Mauritius would be able to prevent the UK or the US having full control over operations from Diego Garcia,” the explanatory memo attached to the agreement said.

The U.K. agreed to establish a trust fund for the Chagossians of 40 million pounds ($54 million) and will pay an annual grant of 45 million pounds ($60.7 million) for 25 years for the welfare of Mauritians.

Questions still loom over the fate of the Chagos Marine Protected Area. The Mauritian government has committed to set up a Mauritian MPA, and the U.K. agreed to help, but the details are still being worked out between the two countries.

Banner image: A view of Salomon Atoll, part of the Chagos Archipelago. Image by Anne Sheppard via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

A sudden freeze on U.S. conservation funding is sending shockwaves through efforts to combat the illegal wildlife trade, a multibillion-dollar industry pushing iconic species toward extinction, through Africa and Southeast Asia, a recent Mongabay article reports.

In Malawi, where authorities recently took down a major Chinese-led trafficking ring with U.S.-backed intelligence and training, momentum is faltering.

Taking down the Chinese syndicate “would not have been possible” without American assistance, said Brighton Kumchedwa, head of Malawi’s wildlife department. Now, he warned, officials are in a “difficult situation.”

The cuts stem from the dismantling of USAID and the abrupt halt of grant programs administered by agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Elon Musk, a vocal Trump ally, boasted about “feeding USAID into the woodchipper,” accusing it of unspecified “criminality” without evidence. The consequences are clearest on the ground: sniffer dogs idled, patrols scaled back, and intelligence networks gutted.

In Tanzania, the nonprofit APOPO was set to expand a program that uses rats to detect wildlife products at ports, but it’s been frozen mid-trial. In Indonesia, forest patrols in the Leuser Ecosystem — home to elephants, rhinos and orangutans — have been curtailed.

“If patrols stop, it will have serious consequences,” said Rudi Putra, a biologist running an affected NGO. His team has shelved expansion plans just to stay afloat.

Meanwhile, criminal transnational syndicates stand to benefit.

Less work by NGOs and governments means more opportunities for Chinese trafficking networks, warned Andrea Crosta of Earth League International (ELI). The U.S. retreat also weakens diplomatic pressure on China to enforce its own laws.

The disruption is acute in Southeast Asia, where governments lack the institutional capacity to step in.

“Nobody will replace it,” said Cambodian conservation biologist Yoganand K. The EU has pledged $30 million for forensic work, but it’s a fraction of what’s vanishing.

Larger NGOs may weather the storm, but smaller local groups — often the first to detect trafficking — face collapse. The International Rhino Foundation expects to lose $1 million annually. In Malawi, 90 rangers may not receive crucial training.

As public spending tightens worldwide, poaching could surge.

“I don’t know if these species have the time to wait for someone to care,” said Shannon Noelle Rivera, a researcher specializing in illegal wildlife trade at USFWS.

The rats, it turns out, may have been the lucky ones.

This is a summary of Wildlife crime crackdown in jeopardy worldwide after US funding cuts

Reporting by Carolyn Cowan, Charles Mpaka, Gerry Flynn, Hans Nicholas Jong, Philip Jacobson, and Spoorthy Raman

Banner image of elephant tusks confiscated by forest officials in Uganda, 2020, by NRCN / USAID in Africa via Flickr (U.S. Government).