Rhett Butler

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Founder of Mongabay.

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846 stories

Courtesy of Grupo de Intervención en Altura.

Cristina Gallardo, 39, a devoted guardian of Spain’s wild places, is lost to a fall

Rhett Ayers Butler 7 Dec 2025

An eastern lesser bamboo lemur (Hapalemur griseus).

Lemurs are at risk. So are the people protecting them.

Rhett Ayers Butler 7 Dec 2025

The resulting piles of plastic after beach clean-up volunteers sifted microplastics from water and sand in Kailua Bay, a few miles south Kāneʻohe Bay, Oʻahu. Image courtesy of: Ken G Kosada/Lethal Lens Photography.

Another threat to reefs: Microplastic chemicals may harm coral reproduction

Kari Goodbar 5 Dec 2025

How dropping ads set us free to focus on impact

Rhett Ayers Butler 5 Dec 2025

A breaching northern bottlenose soars out of the water. Image by Sanna Isojunno via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

A rare bright spot for whales: Decades of conservation pay off for endangered population in Canada

Stella Mayerhoff 5 Dec 2025

Jean Beasley with the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center with a juvenile Kemp's Ridley sea turtle on Sept. 17, 2013 in Surf City, N.C. Photo courtesy of KEN BLEVINS/STARNEWS

Jean Beasley, who turned her young daughter’s dying wish into a mission to save sea turtles, has died

Rhett Ayers Butler 3 Dec 2025

Monarch butterfly resting on a plant. Photo by José López-García

Saving critical winter habitat for monarch butterflies may depend on buy-in from their human neighbors

Claudia Steiner 3 Dec 2025

Beach wheelchairs provided by Point Reyes National Seashore Association, a group that manages the northern part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area in California, United States. Image credit: PRNA / Zoe Duerksen-Salm

Unequal access to nature: Few outdoor spaces in Europe and the U.S. accommodate sensory, mental disabilities

Albert Chern 3 Dec 2025

An Asian dhole (Cuon alpinus) in a grassy field. Human impact hot spots for Canidae, like dhole, include Southeast Asia, Southern Africa, and South America. Image credit: Kalyan Varma / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

Predators in peril: Protected areas cover just a fraction of global carnivore ranges

Alonso Daboub 3 Dec 2025

Sorting of plastic bottles collected in Costa Rica for analysis. Photo by Juan Manuel Muñoz-Araya.

Lost at sea, found in Latin America: the journeys of discarded plastic bottles

Olivia Maule 2 Dec 2025

The California two-spot octopus (Octopus bimaculoides). Photo by Anik Grearson.

Octopuses use their arms to sense and respond to microbiomes on the seafloor

Pepper St. Clair 1 Dec 2025

Early-career conservationists take part in the 2025 EDGE Conservation Tools Course, part of a global fellowship program that supports emerging leaders to drive locally led conservation. Image by Paul Barnes /EDGE of Existence, Zoological Society of London.

Small grants can empower the next generation of conservationists

Rhett Ayers Butler 1 Dec 2025

Rainforest in northern Borneo. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

Endangered knowledge and endangered plants: Threats to Indigenous medicinal traditions in Borneo

Cassidy Beach 1 Dec 2025

Screenshot of Gramma. Courtesy of the San Diego Zoo.

The long life of a Galápagos tortoise

Rhett Ayers Butler 29 Nov 2025

Lemurs are being eaten as an urban delicacy in Madagascar

Rhett Ayers Butler 28 Nov 2025

How religious beliefs may help protect Mentawai’s forests

Rhett Ayers Butler 27 Nov 2025

Bambang Hero Saharjo and Basuki Wasis, two environmental experts from IPB University, after the first hearing of their lawsuit against their testimony at the Cibinong District Court,

In Indonesia’s courts, truth can be a lonely witness

Rhett Ayers Butler 25 Nov 2025

A forest fire in August 2025 in the Brazilian state of Rondônia. Image © Marizilda Cruppe/Greenpeace.

Weather disasters are surging in the Amazon. Reporting isn’t.

Rhett Ayers Butler 24 Nov 2025

Illegal air strips identified during the investigation.

Mongabay Latam wins the Global Shining Light Award for investigative journalism

Rhett Ayers Butler 23 Nov 2025

Vicente Fernandes Vilhalva. Photo courtesy of Aty Guasu/Survival International

A killing with precedent: Kaiowá man’s murder fits a pattern in Brazil

Rhett Ayers Butler 21 Nov 2025

Bearing witness to Indonesia’s environmental challenges: Sapariah Saturi

Rhett Ayers Butler 21 Nov 2025

Pokigron and Atjoni villages beside the Suriname River. Image courtesy of Wikimedia.

Why don’t forest protectors get paid? asks Suriname’s president

Rhett Ayers Butler 21 Nov 2025

Banzeiro da Easperanza in Belem. Photo by Lucas Boony

A forest worth more standing: Virgilio Viana on what it will take to protect the Amazon

Rhett Ayers Butler 21 Nov 2025

Chris Grinter. Photo © California Academy of Sciences

Inside California’s race to document its insects: A conversation with Chris Grinter

Rhett Ayers Butler 20 Nov 2025

A slowdown, not salvation: what new extinction data reveal about the state of life on Earth

Rhett Ayers Butler 17 Nov 2025

Gayatri Reksodihardjo-Lilley. Photo by Surya Risuana.

Gayatri Reksodihardjo-Lilley, who helped Indonesian communities restore their reefs, has died

Rhett Ayers Butler 16 Nov 2025

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

Saalumarada Thimmakka, mother of trees, has died, aged 114

Rhett Ayers Butler 15 Nov 2025

Jane Goodall with Roots & Shoots members. Photo by Mary Paris/JGI

At her memorial, a call to carry Jane Goodall’s hope forward

Rhett Ayers Butler 12 Nov 2025

Gregg Treinish in Botswana's Okavango. Photo by Shah Selbe

Turning outdoor exploration into environmental discovery: Gregg Treinish and the rise of Adventure Scientists

Rhett Ayers Butler 11 Nov 2025

People in the Amazon rainforest understory. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

A blueprint for communicating about the Amazon rainforest (commentary)

Rhett Ayers Butler 9 Nov 2025

Rainforest, reef, and ocean on Maratua Island, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.

Three tracks to rescue 1.5°C: fossil exit, forest protection, and nature’s carbon (commentary)

Ilona Szabó de Carvalho 8 Nov 2025

Cacao. Image courtesy of Instituto Arapyaú

Brazil can protect its forests while growing its economy, says Arapyaú’s Renata Piazzon

Rhett Ayers Butler 5 Nov 2025

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News and Inspiration from Nature's Frontline.

Collage: Elise Paietta, postdoctoral research scholar during fieldwork, with tropical forest

Brazil is the largest eucalyptus producer in the world. Eucalyptus production has been linked to several social and environmental violations such as land grabbing, human right abuses, and environmental harm from use of pesticides to biodiversity loss. Image © Markus Mauthe/Greenpeace.

Where cars go to die: an auto graveyard.

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