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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President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva with his environmental and climate change minister, Marina Silva on his first day in office on Jan. 1.

Why is Lula still silent on Brazil’s ‘Bill of devastation?’ (commentary)

Philip M. Fearnside 8 Jul 2025
Beach on Mioskon Island in Raja Ampat. Photo by Rhett Bulter/Mongabay.

This nonprofit connects frontline conservationists with funders, catalyzing impact

Mike DiGirolamo 1 Jul 2025
Eurasian brown bear courtesy of Magnus Lundgren/Swedensbigfive.org.

Sweden needs a rights of nature legal framework (commentary)

Emil Siekkinen 26 Jun 2025
Every humphead wrasse has unique facial markings with distinctive black lines around the eyes and squiggly patterns on the face.

Vanishing giants: The Indian Ocean’s biggest fish need saving (commentary)

Melita Samoilys 25 Jun 2025
The Magpie River, known to the Indigenous Innu people as Mutehekau Shipu, in eastern Quebec, a region they know as Nitassinan. Image courtesy of Robert Macfarlane.

Some rivers have rights, but author Robert Macfarlane argues they’re also alive

Mike DiGirolamo, Rachel Donald 24 Jun 2025
Humpback whales in French Polynesian waters. The intensity and duration of marine heat waves could have widespread effects on marine biodiversity, increasing the likelihood of species displacement and mortality. Image by Toby Matthews / Ocean Image Bank.

Whales still aren’t ‘eating all the fish’ (commentary)

Peter Corkeron 18 Jun 2025
A cup of coffee with beans and a teaspoon on a stump tabletop. Image by Anja (cocoparisiene) from Pixabay (Pixabay Content License).

Soaring coffee prices are fueled by deforestation, but solutions exist

Mike DiGirolamo 17 Jun 2025
A coal miner walking barefoot through heaps of coal dust at a coal mine and processing plant, Jharkand, India. Image courtesy of Rajesh Kumar Singh / Climate Visuals Countdown.

At COP30 & beyond, the fight for climate justice must end corporate impunity (commentary)

Pablo Fajardo 17 Jun 2025
A toco toucan in a Brazilian forest. Experts confirm the fact that homogenous plantations, or monocultures, have a much lower diversity of species when compared to the environment that has been destroyed to make way for them. Image by Rhett A. Butler / Mongabay.

It’s time to pay the true value of tropical forest conservation (commentary)

André Aquino, João Rezende 12 Jun 2025
Sailboat at night. Image by Johannes Plenio via Unsplash.

Stars & lighthouses: Marine conservation that blends Pacific Islander wisdom and Western knowledge (commentary)

Angelo Villagomez 11 Jun 2025
A screenshot of Carlos Zorrilla in 2023, explaining history of mining exploration in Ecuador. Footage by Romi Castagnino for Mongabay.

‘Mining companies will lie to your face’: Carlos Zorrilla on 30 years of fighting for Intag Valley

Mike DiGirolamo 10 Jun 2025
A moray eel in the coral reefs of the Daymaniyat Islands, Oman.

When our oceans can’t breathe, a sea change is needed (commentary)

Fred Boltz, Jeffrey Griffin 9 Jun 2025
A tokay gecko.

Environmental crimes are often hidden by ‘flying money’ laundering schemes (commentary)

Andrea Crosta 6 Jun 2025
Exploratory oil drilling in the Amazon. Image courtesy of Colin Dunlop.

Why Brazil should abandon its plans for oil and gas in Amazonia (commentary)

Philip M. Fearnside 5 Jun 2025
White rhyolite spires on the shores of Jodogahama Beach in Miyako, Japan. Iwate prefecture. These spires are estimated to be around 45 million years old, and form a natural version of a Japanese garden. This beach is part of the Sanriku Fukkō National Park. It was incorporated into this national park as a reconstruction effort following the Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011. Photo by Mike DiGirolamo/Mongabay.

Kim Stanley Robinson on how his novel ‘Ministry for the Future’ holds lessons for the present

Mike DiGirolamo 3 Jun 2025
Emergent rainforest tree in the Amazon. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler for Mongabay.

The Tropical Forest Forever Facility needs more local and Indigenous focus (commentary)

Joe Eisen 3 Jun 2025
Image courtesy of Lucy Calderón/EcoLogic Development Fund.

Conservation tech without Indigenous knowledge and local context has limits (commentary)

Marco Acevedo 28 May 2025
Drone view of flooded forest in the Amazon. Photo by Rhett A. Butler for Mongabay.

On Amazon destruction, will Brazil President Lula’s ‘disinformation space’ be penetrated? (commentary)

Philip M. Fearnside 22 May 2025
An excavator and a gold washing station at the Alangong-Bamegod-Inès mine site in the Sangha. This equipment is typical of semi-industrial gold mining, while the water for the washing station is drawn from surrounding streams, raising concerns about contamination. Image by Elodie Toto for Mongabay.

Deforestation in REDD-protected Congo rainforests is ‘beyond words’

Mike DiGirolamo 20 May 2025
Chrystal Mantyka-Pringle leading cultural mapping exercises with Tr'ondek Hwech'in First Nation citizens Ryan Petersen and Zack Everitt at the community’s Land of Plenty cultural camp in 2019. Image courtesy of Elaine Cordon.

An alternative approach to bridge Indigenous knowledge and Western science for conservation (commentary)

Chrystal Mantyka-Pringle, Natasha Ayoub, Katie Fraser 20 May 2025
Banner image: A truck carries logs cut from the Amazon Rainforest in the state of Rondônia. Image courtesy of Vicente Sampaio/Imaflora.

The world needs a new UN protocol to fight environmental crime (commentary)

Robert Muggah 15 May 2025
2025 Goldman Prize winner Carlos Mallo Molina (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

How a road engineer became an ocean activist & won the world’s top environmental prize

Mike DiGirolamo 13 May 2025
Blackwater oxbow lake in the Amazon. Image by Rhett Butler for Mongabay.

Why WHO’s pandemic prevention draft agreement takes a nature-centric, One Health approach (commentary)

Chris Walzer, Susan Lieberman, Christine Franklin 13 May 2025
NC State PhD student Bethany Wager catching and tagging a False Albacore for The Albie Project. Image courtesy of American Saltwater Guides Association.

Angling for answers, this saltwater fishing group boosts research for better conservation

Erik Hoffner 12 May 2025

There’s something fishy about ‘blue economy’ proposals for sustainable marine management (commentary)

Philippa Louey 9 May 2025
A pod of Sperm Whales move into a defense line to stop a pod of Orcas (Killer Whales) getting to their calf, off the coast of Sri Lanka. Image © Paul Hilton / Greenpeace.

Our responsibility for cetacean conservation grows with proof of their intelligence (commentary)

Avery Ancell 8 May 2025
A model of a woolly mammoth at the Royal Victoria Museum, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 2018. Photo by Thomas Quine, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

‘De-extinction’ isn’t just misleading — it’s dangerous, ecologist says

Mike DiGirolamo 6 May 2025
Humpback whales in French Polynesian waters. The intensity and duration of marine heat waves could have widespread effects on marine biodiversity, increasing the likelihood of species displacement and mortality. Image by Toby Matthews / Ocean Image Bank.

Listening to whales is key to their conservation

Mike DiGirolamo 29 Apr 2025
Flowering tree in the Amazon rainforest canopy. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler

Refocusing conservation funding on trust & community leadership after USAID freeze (commentary)

Leona M. Bhuyan 28 Apr 2025
Forest in Panama that Amigos del Bosque aims to conserve via biodiversity credits, carbon offsets, or other payments for ecosystem services. Image courtesy of Amigos del Bosque.

Paying to prevent deforestation is positive & not ‘nothing’ (commentary)

Jessica Ausinheiler 24 Apr 2025
2025 Goldman Prize winners Besjana Guri and Olsi Nika (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

Meet the 2025 Goldman Environmental Prize Winners

Mongabay.com 21 Apr 2025
A siamang gibbon seized in Chennai, India in August 2024, along with turtles and pythons. It was being carried in the baggage of a passenger travelling from Bangkok.

Illegal trafficking of siamang gibbons is a concerning and underreported crisis (commentary)

Sinan Serhadli 18 Apr 2025

News and Inspiration from Nature's Frontline.

A collage featuring a Polish soldier and Białowieża Forest.
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