Erik Hoffner

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About

Erik is a photojournalist, editor, and award-winning podcast producer for Mongabay. Find his latest thoughts posted on Bluesky and see more of his writing and fine art photography via Instagram via @erikhoffner on both platforms.

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An antipodean albatross (Diomedea antipodensis) flies near the sub-Antarctic islands of Aotearoa New Zealand in 2023.

Marine flyways are the missing map we can use to boost seabird conservation (commentary)

Tammy Davies, Aline Kühl-Stenzel 30 Mar 2026
Manatees image courtesy of Jorge Zamora.

On Manatee Appreciation Day, remember these gentle giants who protect aquatic ecosystems (commentary)

Omar Vidal 24 Mar 2026
Lilac-breasted roller in Etosha National Park, Namibia. Image courtesy of Giles Laurent via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

How Namibia’s bird conservation projects build community resilience (commentary)

Martha Karas 23 Mar 2026
A Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) ship.

Shipping’s biofuel gamble could deepen Africa’s land squeeze and food insecurity (commentary)

Susan Chomba, Million Belay 20 Mar 2026
Indigenous protesters and self-proclaimed river defenders demonstrate against Brazilian dams. Image courtesy of Amazon Watch.

A decade after the death of Berta Cáceres, we can no longer tolerate threats to environmental activists (commentary)

Michael Sutton 17 Mar 2026
Juvenile Sumatran orangutans like this are highly sought by traffickers. Image courtesy of Onrizal Onrizal.

Indonesia’s orangutan trafficking cases reveal need for a change in approach (commentary)

Onrizal Onrizal 12 Mar 2026
The Cerrado in Correntina, Bahia. Image courtesy of Thomas Bauer / Earthsight.

The Cerrado is threatened but crucial for Brazil’s biodiversity & water security (commentary)

Cássio Cardoso Pereira, Walisson Kenedy-Siqueira, Domingos de Jesus Rodrigues, Rodolfo Salm, Philip M. Fearnside 9 Mar 2026
Biologists from the Idaho Fish and Wildlife Office hike at sunrise to survey for greater sage-grouse in Owyhee County, Idaho.

Emotional and psychological stresses beleaguer conservation professionals (commentary)

Vik Mohan, Nerissa Chao 4 Mar 2026
In the cloud forests of Brava, Cabo Verde, community youth bend over thorny shrubs, pulling out these invasive plants that choke the native orchids and grasslands. Not far away, herders guide their cattle through cleared pastures, benefiting directly from the restoration work. These community members are inspired by an initiative that commenced thousands of kilometers away in India, where villagers and conservationists are wrestling with Lantana camara, an ornamental plant from Central America that has spread like wildfire, threatening forests, wildlife, and livelihoods alike. Yet in both places, these struggles are not just about removing a plant—they are about securing a future where people and ecosystems can coexist. Image courtesy of the author.

Local communities are conservation’s most undervalued asset (commentary)

José Monteiro, Moreangels Mbizah, Damian Bell, Monicah Mbiba 3 Mar 2026
Pranisha Pun harvests a cordyceps mushroom in western Nepal. Image by Sushil Mainali / ANSAB.

Sustainable trade in wild plants benefits people and planet (commentary)

Richard Scobey 2 Mar 2026

Agroforestry offers market-based way to boost Amazon rains & farmer incomes (analysis)

Timothy J. Killeen 25 Feb 2026
Highway BR-163 stretches between the Tapajos National Forest, left, and a soy field in Belterra, Para state, Brazil. Highway BR-163, built during the military dictatorship in the 1970s, connects areas of strong support for former President Jair Bolsonaro, who lost October's election. Image by AP Photo/Leo Correa.

Banks must step in before the Amazon Soy Moratorium collapses (commentary)

Ginger Cassady 18 Feb 2026
Paicines Ranch

From chemistry to regeneration: Agriculture’s next transformation has begun (commentary)

Sallie Calhoun 17 Feb 2026

Texas sea turtles have lost a conservation hero (commentary)

Todd Steiner 16 Feb 2026
A howler monkey traverses unprotected electric lines in Costa Rica, a situation that leads to deaths of many monkeys, sloths, kinkajous and more. Image courtesy of International Animal Rescue.

Costa Rica’s top court orders action to shield wildlife from power line hazards

Bobby Bascomb 16 Feb 2026
Huoideua plantation.

From land acquisitions to local ownership: Alternatives for carbon offsetting (commentary)

Christoph Kubitza 13 Feb 2026
Crew members from Southeast Asia work to unload fish on purse seiners in the Western Pacific Ocean in 2023.

Sustainable fisheries can’t be built on exploited labor (commentary)

Alfred “Bubba” Cook 11 Feb 2026
A captive black and rufous elephant shrew (Rhynchocyon petersi), a resident of various kayas. Image by Joey Makalintal via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

Biodiversity bonds can work, but their design flaws must be fixed (commentary)

Anna Comacchio 10 Feb 2026
Destroyed trees inside the Apamprama reserve. Image by Awudu Salami Sulemana Yoda.

Successful campaign proves Ghana’s forests are worth more than gold (commentary)

Daryl Bosu 5 Feb 2026
Ramon ‘Chin-Chin’ Uy Jr. is Slow Food representative for the Asia and Pacific region. Image courtesy of Slow Food.

Why is a Philippine island now the Asia Pacific center for agroecology? Interview with Ramon ‘Chin-Chin’ Uy Jr.

Keith Anthony Fabro 3 Feb 2026
Puzzle of a natural history museum diorama. Image by Erik Hoffner for Mongabay.

Conservation programs must embrace causal evidence when evaluating impact (commentary)

Tanya O’Garra 3 Feb 2026
The Dayak Bahau community in Long Isun expresses its complaint. Image courtesy of Accountability Counsel.

World Bank carbon program risks further infringing upon rights of Indonesian Indigenous community (commentary)

Fuat Edi Kurniawan, Sadar Ginting, Anna Christi Suwardi 28 Jan 2026
Food security activist Richard Rojo in his Vanuatu taro garden. Image courtesy of Monica Kidd.

Vanuatu communities move to protect taro, an ancestral climate-resilient crop (analysis)

Monica Kidd 26 Jan 2026
Participants of Terra Madre Asia Pacific celebrate day 5 of the regional 'good food' event. Image courtesy of Slow Food.

Philippines hosts new Asia-Pacific hub for sustainable agriculture, cuisine

Keith Anthony Fabro 21 Jan 2026
East African mahogany (Khaya anthotheca), Chirinda Forest, Zimbabwe. Image courtesy of Tony Robello via Wikimedia Commons.

Too many African plants fall into the IUCN’s ‘not evaluated’ trap (commentary)

Victor Nsereko Wantate 20 Jan 2026

The knowledge to save coffee already exists, now it’s in one e-library

Bobby Bascomb 20 Jan 2026
After burning off the mercury, a relatively pure piece of gold remains. Image by Thomas Graham for Mongabay.

Turning the Amazon’s toxic gold mine waste liability into economic opportunity (analysis)

Timothy J. Killeen 13 Jan 2026
Rainforest rainbow in Sabah. Image by Rhett Butler for Mongabay.

AI-centered conservation efforts can only be ethical if Indigenous people help lead them (commentary)

McKalee Steen, Magali de Bruyn 9 Jan 2026
Two members of the Prey Preah Roka Community Network – a grassroots activism group made up of communities around the wildlife sanctuary - document an illegally logged tree in the wildlife sanctuary. The grassroots group regularly patrol the wildlife sanctuary, documenting any illegal logging they come across by marking GPS coordinates, as well as taking a note of the species and diameter of the trees. Image by: Andy Ball / Mongabay.

Environmental crime prevention is moving into the diplomatic mainstream (commentary)

Robert Muggah 8 Jan 2026
Judith Enck, author of The Problem with Plastic, holding a copy of the book. Image by Jerrick Mitra.

Plastic pollution requires urgent action, says author Judith Enck

Mike DiGirolamo 6 Jan 2026
Sperm whales inside Azores MPA Network. Image courtesy of Andy Mann/National Geographic.

Azores must respect its exceptional network of marine protected areas (commentary)

Enric Sala 5 Jan 2026
Gregg Treinish in Botswana's Okavango. Photo by Shah Selbe

How ‘Adventure Scientists’ provide pioneering data for conservation

Mike DiGirolamo 23 Dec 2025

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Beginning in the mid-2000s, poachers targeted elephants for their tusks, which were worth hefty sums on the black market. In some countries, including Zambia, governments and conservationists are trying to find new ways to combat poaching — like understanding motivations and trying to provide alternative, legal employment.
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