Rhett Butler

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Founder of Mongabay.

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Jane Goodall in Japan in June 2023. Photo taken by Kaori Nishida

Jane Goodall awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Rhett Ayers Butler 6 Jan 2025

Rainforest Outlook 2025: Storylines to watch as the year unfolds

Rhett Ayers Butler 30 Dec 2024

Conservationists and nature defenders who died in 2024

Rhett Ayers Butler 27 Dec 2024
Sani Lodge run by the Kichwa Indigenous community at Sani Isla. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

Sani Isla: A Kichwa community that found alternatives to oil in conservation and tourism

Ana Cristina Alvarado 24 Dec 2024
YEAR IN RAINFORESTS BANNER

The year in tropical rainforests: 2024

Rhett Ayers Butler 24 Dec 2024
As he stepped carefully along the seafloor in the warm shallows of French Polynesia, I could hardly tell where the boy ended and the sea began. The pink whiptail ray swooped playfully around him and for a moment I could see clearly the path to coexistence between humanity and all the denizens of the sea.

How conservation photographer Cristina Mittermeier uses visual storytelling to inspire action

Rhett Ayers Butler 9 Dec 2024
Pinyon pines cut into firewood on the Diné College forest plot. Photo credit: Peter Z. Fulé.

Students and scientists collaborate to maintain Navajo Nation forests

Mark DeGraff 6 Dec 2024
Weddell seals live in Antarctica. They communicate via chirps and trills. Image credit: ELG21 from Pixabay

Colliding icebergs and chirping seals: Polar ocean sounds are reimagined in art-science collaboration

Jasmin Galvan 6 Dec 2024
Tree cover in Kauai. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

Trees live out their lives in surprising ways, massive new study finds

Collin Blinder 5 Dec 2024
The Missouri River floods Nebraska’s Offutt Air Force Base in March 2019. Photo credit: Rachelle Blake on Wikimedia Commons

Eastern U.S. floods could persist longer toward the end of the century

Jenna Ahart 4 Dec 2024
Moose (Alces alces) populations in Ontario, Canada, have declined by 20 percent in the last two decades. Photo credit: Richard Lee on Unsplash

Why are Canadian moose declining? Interviews with Indigenous communities offer new clues

Carly Kay 4 Dec 2024
Killer whales swim in the icy Arctic waters that are newly open to them. Photo credit: Maha Ghazal

Killer whales have found new homes in the Arctic Ocean, potentially reshaping marine ecology

Caroline Hemphill 3 Dec 2024
Green-winged teals (Anas carolinensis) take flight over waters safeguarded in Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge in Wyoming. Overall, the state has up to 260,000 hectares (640,000 acres) of at-risk wetlands. Photo credit: Tom Koerner/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision threatens the country’s inland wetlands with new development, study says

Anna Fitzgerald Guth 2 Dec 2024
Antarctic krill swim in swarms of billions. Credit: Aker BioMarine, Pew

Antarctic krill store massive amounts of carbon in the deep ocean, researchers find

Farah Aziz Annesha 29 Nov 2024
River in the Kosnipata valley, Peru. Photo by Rhett A. Butler

Why is a landscape approach needed for funding the global environmental agenda? (commentary)

Aida Greenbury, Robert Nasi 26 Nov 2024
Citizen scientist photographing a Northern Queen of Sheba Orchid in Lesueur National Park, Western Australia. Photo credit: Thomas Mesaglio

Citizen scientists can boost IUCN species assessments, but need better guidance from ecologists

Mahima Samraik 26 Nov 2024
Food can pick up chemicals from to-go containers and everything else they contact on their way to your table. Credit: Taklamacuwv Lamia on Wikimedia Commons

Thousands of chemicals from food packaging found in humans, a major study reveals

Rita Aksenfeld 25 Nov 2024

Amazon deforestation in Brazil plunges 31% to lowest level in 9 years

Rhett Ayers Butler 10 Nov 2024
Glaciers play an important role in the balance of water cycles and ecosystems. Although receding glaciers can degrade these systems, they also serve as an indicator of climate change. We can use Earth-observation satellite imagery to monitor and track glaciers from space. This Landsat 8 image shows glaciers surrounding Lake Sofron, Alaska. Blue areas indicate glacial extent; red areas indicate extensive moraine from glacier debris.

50 years of geographic insight: In interview with Jack Dangermond on Esri’s journey and the future of GIS

Rhett Ayers Butler 28 Oct 2024
Pine forest in California's Sierra Nevada. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler

Forests and the Fate of Civilizations: A Conversation with John Perlin

Rhett Ayers Butler 16 Oct 2024
Andean Cock-of-the-rock (Rupicola peruvianus). Photo by Rhett A. Butler

Why biodiversity credits cannot work (commentary)

Byron Swift 14 Oct 2024
Greenpeace Brazil conducted an aerial survey in southern Amazonas and northern Rondônia to monitor deforestation and fires in July 2024. Photo © Marizilda Cruppe / Greenpeace.

Deforestation remains low, but fires surge in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest

Mongabay.com 12 Oct 2024
Ryan Killackey

The life and legacy of Ryan Killackey, the filmmaker who rallied international support for Yasuni (Obituary)

Rhett Ayers Butler 9 Oct 2024
Rinnie and Gary Shapiro in a peat swamp in Central Kalimantan. Photo credit: Rod Brindamour.

Orangutan conservation and communication: Gary Shapiro’s half-century journey from zoos to the wilds of Borneo

Rhett Ayers Butler 8 Oct 2024
Rainfall over the Amazon river. Photo by Rhett A. Butler

The Amazon is ablaze again. What it means for us (commentary)

Mark J. Plotkin 30 Sep 2024
Greenpeace Brazil conducted an aerial survey in southern Amazonas and northern Rondônia to monitor deforestation and fires in July 2024. Photo © Marizilda Cruppe / Greenpeace.

Brazil’s race to approve the end of the Amazon: The BR-319 highway needs a new environmental impact assessment (commentary)

Philip M. Fearnside 28 Sep 2024
Green rice paddies in Udomxai province, Laos. Photo by Rhett A. Butler

Alan Dangour on reframing climate change as a health crisis

Matthew Boyer, Rhett Ayers Butler 24 Sep 2024
NASA satellite image of BR-230 highway.

Brazil’s BR-319 highway disaster: Yet another maneuver (commentary)

Philip M. Fearnside 20 Sep 2024
CO2e emissions between 1850-2018 imposed over warming stripes graphic depicting annual mean global temperatures (1850-2018, from World Meteorological Organization data). Credit for general concept of warming stripes: climate scientist Ed Hawkins, University of Reading. Data values are visualized using color rather than locations of points on a graph. Horizontal scale is time, from 1850 (left) to 2018 (right). Data is global (not for a locality). This is an early, original chart from Dr. Hawkins, and should not be updated as the years pass. Update: newer versions of the warming stripes under more permissive CC‑BY‑4.0 licensing available here: showyourstripes.info Date 4 December 2018 Source Hawkins, Ed

Action at Scale: Elizabeth Yee on The Rockefeller Foundation’s Climate Strategy

Matthew Boyer, Rhett Ayers Butler 9 Sep 2024
Event announcement. Goodall photo by Jeff Horowitz.

Jane Goodall is coming to San Francisco. Her event is sold out, but students can still get free tickets

Rhett Ayers Butler 30 Aug 2024
Reserva Narupa in Ecuador. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler

Streak of falling deforestation snapped at 15 months in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest

Mongabay.com 9 Aug 2024
Cacao production in the Amazon (source FAPESP)

Scaling up the Amazon’s many bioeconomies requires investment in nature, prosperity, and inclusion (commentary)

Katherine Aguirre, Peter Smith, Robert Muggah 8 Aug 2024

News and Inspiration from Nature's Frontline.

This rescue center saves Rio's wildlife from poachers
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A close-up image of a Cheetah in the Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya. Image by Rhett A. Butler / Mongabay.
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