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

In the shallows off northern Bali, where the reefs flicker with life and the sea carries the rhythm of work and prayer, a quiet revolution took root. Women who once had few choices began tending tanks of clownfish and Banggai cardinalfish, learning the art of aquaculture. Fishers in nearby villages abandoned cyanide and explosives, watching their catches recover. Coral fragments, anchored to man-made structures, began to grow again. The transformation seemed to come from the sea itself, but it began with a woman who believed that to save reefs one must first listen to the people who depend on them.

She had started, as many conservationists do, beneath the waves. Trained in marine biology, she dived across the archipelago, recording the decline of once-vivid ecosystems. But over time, she realized that the reefs would not heal through data alone. “Managing those resources means managing people,” she once said. So she turned from counting fish to understanding fishers, from studying ecosystems to shaping livelihoods.

Gayatri Reksodihardjo-Lilley was a reformer who worked without fanfare. In 2008 she co-founded the LINI Foundation, a small nonprofit that would become a lifeline for Indonesia’s coastal communities. Her projects reached from Bali to Sulawesi and the Banda Islands, linking conservation with dignity. She trained teachers to teach the sea, coaxed policymakers toward collaborative management, and built a center where women could “learn and earn.” When local fishers asked for help rebuilding reefs destroyed by poison fishing, she did not arrive with lectures but with cement molds and patience.

Her methods were deceptively simple: conversation, persistence, and an insistence that communities own their success. Two years after she began working with the Bajo people of Banggai—long dismissed as unreachable—the fishers themselves led a sustainable octopus fishery. Students who interned under her guidance learned not only science but empathy. “I could ask her anything,” recalled one. “She made me feel like family.”

Awards followed, including recognition from the Ornamental Fish International for her contributions to marine sustainability. Yet she remained grounded, forever testing ideas in the field, sleeves rolled, hands wet with seawater. To her, reefs were not symbols but neighbors—fragile, generous, and worth defending.

On November 13, 2025, at Bali International Hospital, Gayatri died. She was survived by her husband, the herpetologist Ron Lilley, and their son, Lawrence. But in the coastal villages she helped transform, her influence endures. She built no monuments, except the living ones beneath the waves: reefs that are growing again, tended by the communities she helped believe they could bring back to life.

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

Along a dusty road between Hulikal and Kudur in southern India, banyan trees rise like sentinels. Their thick roots grasp the earth, their canopies stretch wide, casting deep shade over the red soil. Travelers who pass beneath them find little reason to wonder how they came to be, or who first pressed a sapling into the ground more than seventy years ago. Yet that green corridor—nearly four hundred trees strong—was the life’s work of a woman who owned almost nothing and asked for even less.

She was born around 1911, in a village so small it barely warranted a name on a map. There was no school; she worked as a laborer in a quarry. She married young, to a man who stammered and shared her steady resilience. They were childless, a fact that in rural Karnataka brought more than sorrow—it brought shame. One day, she later recalled, the couple decided to plant trees instead, “and tend to them like we would our children.” So they did. In the dry season, they carried pails of water for miles to nurture their banyans. They fenced them from grazing cattle, shaded them from heat. In time, their “children” took root.

Her name was Saalumarada Thimmakka—the epithet “Saalumarada,” meaning “row of trees,” bestowed by neighbors once her work transformed the landscape. Long after her husband died, she continued to walk the roadside she had greened, touching the trunks as one might pat the shoulders of grown sons. She lived alone in a hut that filled slowly with plaques and garlands from officials who came to honor her, though her phone was sometimes disconnected for want of a bill payment. “People come and give me certificates,” she once said, “but no money.”

Fame found her late. A local journalist wrote her story in 1996, catching the attention of India’s new prime minister, who brought her to Delhi to receive the National Citizen’s Award. Others followed: the Padma Shri in 2019, an honorary doctorate, the BBC’s list of 100 Women. When she blessed the president of India at the awards ceremony, he bowed his head and later wrote that he had been “deeply touched.” She had, by then, planted more than 8,000 trees.

She dreamed of building a hospital in her husband’s memory, though bureaucrats demurred. She died in Bengaluru on November 14th, at about 114. The banyans remain—roots and branches entwined with the grief and grace of the woman who mothered them into being.

Header image: Saalumarada Thimakka receives the Padma Shri from President Ram Nath Kovind. Photo by President’s Secretariat (GODL-India).

A U.K. judge has found that the Australian multinational mining company BHP is liable for a 2015 dam collapse in southeastern Brazil. The incident killed 19 people and unleashed at least 40 million cubic meters (1.4 billion cubic feet) of toxic mine tailings onto downstream towns and waterways for 675 kilometers (419 miles).  

In a Nov. 14 ruling, U.K. High Court judge Finola O’Farrell found that negligence, carelessness or lack of skill led to the collapse of the Fundão tailings dam. Located in the city of Mariana in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state, the dam failure is considered one of the largest environmental disasters in Brazilian history.

“The risk of collapse of the dam was foreseeable,” O’Farrell wrote in her 222-page ruling. “It is inconceivable that a decision would have been taken to continue raising the height of the dam in those circumstances and the collapse could have been averted.”

More than 610,000 people, along with 32 Brazilian municipalities and around 1,400 businesses were represented in the court case against BHP, making it the largest environmental class action lawsuit in U.K. history. BHP owns 50% of Samarco, the company that operated the tailings dam; the other half is owned by state-owned Brazilian mining company Vale.

“The judge’s decision shows what we have been saying for the last 10 years: It was not an accident, and BHP must take responsibility for its actions,” said Gelvana Rodrigues, a local resident whose 7-year-old son, Thiago, was killed in the mudslide. Her statement was shared by Pogust Goodhead, the law firm representing the claimants.

After the tailings dam broke, the entire region was flooded with toxic mining waste. The downstream towns of Bento Rodrigues and Paracatu de Baixo were devastated. Crops and drinking water for millions of people were contaminated.  

A recent study found elevated levels of arsenic, manganese, cadmium and other metals were present in wildlife in the region nine years after the incident.

In the next phase of the trial, a judge will decide on the amount that needs to be paid to the claimants. Pogust Goodhead is seeking $47 billion in compensation. Vale has agreed to pay half of any compensation that may be awarded against BHP. 

BHP said it intends to appeal the decision and will continue to defend the company against the class action lawsuit.

Banner image: Aftermath of the Mariana Dam collapse in Minas Gerais. Image by Cai Santo via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

Uncertainty and hope — these sentiments prevail in a series of commentaries published by the latest cohort of Mongabay’s Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellows as they conclude their program and forge new paths into environmental journalism. Uncertainty centers on the future of our planet, the journalists who cover it and the people who defend it. Hope resides in youth and the power of truth in storytelling.

It’s the hope part that I especially want to highlight. For the past six months, enterprising early-career journalists from Brazil, Colombia, India, Malaysia, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo convened in a virtual program. Despite never meeting in person, this group gelled. They formed new bonds, united in their passion for Planet Earth. They shared thoughts and fears that resonated across continents. And they emerged with a deep sense of responsibility to work for a better future. That is my hope; the inspiration that feeds my soul.

Between May and October, each fellow worked through intensive trainings, field and desk reporting and the rigors of Mongabay’s editing processes. Each produced a range of reports on conservation, climate and biodiversity in their regions. You can read them all on our website. Click on their bylines for their archives.

To capture their parting thoughts, the fellows have published commentaries, which are collected in a series titled Our Letters to the Future:

Fernanda Biasoli (Brazil) writes about finding hope in the young generations that will join the mission to report truth and inspire action. Her essay is based on a speech she recently gave at São Paulo State University.

Samuel Ogunsona (Nigeria) highlights Africa’s potential to lead the world toward a more sustainable future. His commentary comes just in time for the UN Climate Change Conference, happening now in Brazil.

Shradha Triveni (India) writes that environmental journalists today are reporting on their own lived experience, as climate change is here and now. This, she says, requires new tools and shifts in perspective. 

Manuel Fonseca (Colombia) defines the responsibilities journalists have to report on the nuanced struggles of environmental defenders, who risk everything to save what’s most important to their communities.

Blaise Kasereka Makuta (DRC) reports on the critical need to save — and study — the species that are central to traditional medicine and the healing heritage of his Indigenous culture.

Lee Kwai Han (Malaysia) writes about becoming a journalist and finding what sets this profession apart in a changing media world: ethics.

As their mentor, I admit my bias here, but reading these commentaries brings tears to my eyes and hope to my heart. The world is in honest, diligent hands with these journalists, who understand the immensely hard work ahead. And I can’t think of anyone better to guide us into the uncertain future.

Banner image: People walk past a jaguar image inside a COP30 venue in Belém, Brazil. Image by AP Photo/Andre Penner.

Communities living around a remote, mountainous forest in southeastern Bangladesh, close to Myanmar, have reported cross-border incidents of elephant poaching for years but there was no confirmed evidence. A new study has now documented the first known physical signs of elephant poaching in the forest.

The Sangu-Matamuhuri Reserve Forest in southeastern Bangladesh, bordering Myanmar’s Rakhine state, is rich in biodiversity and a critical habitat for a variety of wildlife, including Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus), golden jackal (Canis aureus) and the endangered Asian elephant (Elephas maximus).

“The Sangu–Matamuhuri landscape is a uniquely important region. Elephants were once common here, but over time their population declined,” Sourav Chakma, lead author of the study, told Mongabay in an email. The surviving elephants retreated to the sparsely populated border with Myanmar where hunting pressure was lower, Chakma said.

“Contradictorily, however, the remoteness of the region and its scattered settlements also facilitate access to hunting from both sides of the border, much of which goes unreported and poses a significant threat,” he added.

Bangladesh’s Sangu-Matamuhuri forest has been the apparent site of recent elephant poaching. Map by Andrés Alegría/Mongabay.

A team of four visited the reserve forest from April 23-25 and found signs of elephant activity including elephant footprints, dung and evidence of foraging. They estimate elephants had been in the area 2-4 months earlier, which tracks with local reports that elephants use the region during the local dry season, from November to March, the authors write.

The team also found evidence of poaching: dried elephant skin and bones near an elevated bamboo platform with a firepit beneath it. The field researchers concluded that the site likely had been used to dry elephant meat, a common way of preserving bushmeat.

“We believe that the primary driving factor behind poaching is bushmeat consumption, which is widely practiced among local communities. However, alongside the meat comes ivory, which is also sold,” Chakma said.

The state of the platform and the condition of the remains suggested they were from roughly a month earlier.

No suspects related to this poaching incident were identified, but local people told the researchers that hunters from both Bangladesh and Myanmar are known to frequent the area.

Human-elephant conflict has historically been the main focus of elephant conservation in Bangladesh, while poaching has largely been overlooked, Chakma said.

“Due to the remoteness of the area, this region is often left out of conservation discussions altogether, yet it holds great potential. The narrative needs to shift, and we believe this finding is an important step in that direction,” Chakma said.

Banner image: Banner image: An Asian elephant in a forest in Bangladesh. Image courtesy of Monirul Khan. 

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — After years of pushing the world to limit Earth’s warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, climate leaders are starting to acknowledge that the target set by the 2015 Paris Agreement will almost surely be breached. But they’re not conceding defeat. They are hopeful that temperatures can eventually be brought back below that limit in a concept called “overshoot.” United Nations officials and scientists emphasize the importance of this goal. They warn of irreversible changes if the limit is breached permanently, including threats to coral reefs and ice sheets. The world is on track for significant warming, but efforts to reduce emissions and develop carbon removal technologies offer hope for the future.

By Seth Borenstein, Associated Press 

Banner image: Indigenous peoples Samuel Pinedo, from left, Cline Jorge Chauca Lopez and Teresita Irene Antazu Lopez speak on fires and droughts in the Amazon at the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Monday, Nov. 10, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)