Rhett Butler

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Founder of Mongabay.

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992 stories
NASA satellite image of the Rio Tapajos in March 2022.

Dams on Brazil’s Jamanxim River: The advancing assault on the environment and Indigenous peoples in the Tapajós basin (commentary)

Philip M. Fearnside 29 Mar 2022

As the Horn of Africa heats up, the risks of insecurity are rising (commentary)

Robert Muggah; Peter Schmidt and Giovanna Kuele 28 Mar 2022
Indigenous Masai women at a community leadership meeting in Kenya. Photo by Edna Kaptoyo, Community Conservation Resilience Initiative, 2018

Indigenous land rights take center stage in a new global framework for biodiversity conservation (commentary)

Karl Burkart 24 Mar 2022
Gold mining in the Kayapó Indigenous Territory in 2022. Image credit: NASA

Brazil’s ecosystem of crime in the Amazon (commentary)

Laura Waisbich, Melina Risso, Ilona Szabo 21 Mar 2022
Aerial view of an area in the Amazon deforested for cattle ranching -- the biggest driver of deforestation in the Amazon -- in Lábrea, Amazonas state on Sep 15, 2021. Photo © Victor Moriyama / Amazônia em Chamas (Amazon in Flames Alliance)

Amazon deforestation starts 2022 on the fastest pace in 14 years

Mongabay.com 15 Mar 2022
Aerial view of Amazon rainforest landscape scarred by open pit gold mines

Brazil’s Amazon gold mining to be “stimulated” by Bolsonaro’s decree (commentary)

Philip M. Fearnside 22 Feb 2022
Rotten cacao pod. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler

Why farmers, not industry, must decide the future of cocoa (commentary)

Sam Mawutor 15 Feb 2022
Amazon rainforest in Brazil

January deforestation in the Amazon highest in 14 years

Mongabay.com 11 Feb 2022
Guests awaken on the sky deck of the home Ken and Cynthia within the KampOng Campus for Ecoliteracy & Change. Image credit: Ken Wilson

Journeying in biocultural diversity and conservation philanthropy: Q&A with Ken Wilson

Rhett Ayers Butler 8 Feb 2022
Mark Plotkin with an Embera shaman in the Darien on the Colombia-Panama. Photo credit: Amazon Conservation Team

Ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin: Indigenous knowledge serves as a ‘connective tissue’ between nature and human well-being

Rhett Ayers Butler 31 Jan 2022

Elephant protector and fossil hunter Richard Leakey leaves outsized legacy in Kenya

Jeremy Hance 25 Jan 2022
Gold mining in the Amazon. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler

Brazil’s illegal gold rush is fueling corruption, violent crime and deforestation

Robert Muggah 14 Jan 2022

Wild cat trade: Why the cheetah is not safe just yet (commentary)

Patricia Tricorache, Tomas Maule 12 Jan 2022
Satellite image of forest islands in the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project in the Brazilian Amazon. Image credit: Maxar Technologies with processing by Mongabay.

Tom Lovejoy’s enduring legacy to the planet

Jeremy Hance 7 Jan 2022

Rainforests in 2022: A look at the year ahead

Rhett Ayers Butler 4 Jan 2022

E.O. Wilson’s last dream

Jeremy Hance 3 Jan 2022

Conservation deaths in 2021

Mongabay.com 30 Dec 2021
Composite image. Left: Amazon rainforest - photo credit: Rhett A. Butler. Right: Burning forest in the Brazilian Amazon - image credit: Greenpeace

The year in rainforests 2021

Rhett Ayers Butler 29 Dec 2021
Port of Long Beach, California in February 2020. Photo: NASA Landsat

Visions of a post-supply chain society (commentary)

Nikolas Kozloff 27 Dec 2021
Courtesy of the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation

Edward O. Wilson, prominent biologist and author, has died at 92

Rhett Ayers Butler 27 Dec 2021
Photo credit: Bill Laurance

Tom Lovejoy, prominent conservation biologist, dies at 80

Rhett Ayers Butler 25 Dec 2021
Natural forest (left) versus an oil palm plantation (right) in Indonesia. Photo credits: Rhett A. Butler

What has the pandemic done to forest policies? (commentary)

Aida Greenbury 23 Dec 2021
Flowering rainforest tree in the Colombian Amazon. Photo by Rhett A. Butler for Mongabay.

Could the Blockchain help save the Amazon? (commentary)

Sophia Wood 22 Dec 2021
Fighting the flames on the Deepwater Horizon drill platform in 2010. Image credit: NOAA.

‘Everyone is capable’ of climate action, say Kevin Patel and Julia Jackson

Rhett Ayers Butler 17 Dec 2021
Long-house at Sungai Utik, an Iban community in West Kalimantan that has successfully defended its customary forests against loggers. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler / mongabay

Climate efforts won’t succeed without secure community rights, says Nonette Royo

Rhett Ayers Butler 13 Dec 2021
A Rainforest Alliance / UTZ Program that provides training of tea farmers in climate smart agriculture methods, which are designed to help farmers adapt to and prepare for the impacts of climate change. Photo credit: Giuseppe Cipriani

‘Collaboration is key’ to address big environmental challenges, says Daniel Katz

Rhett Ayers Butler 8 Dec 2021
Measuring coral off the coast of East Africa. Photo credit: Cheryl-Samantha Owen / Save Our Seas Foundation

We must reverse the pressures on coral reefs before it’s too late (commentary)

David Obura, Melita Samoilys 6 Dec 2021
Andean Condor. Photo by Enrique Ortiz

How Andean Condors in Peru saved the California condor from extinction (commentary)

Enrique Ortiz 5 Dec 2021
The spectral tarsier is a close relative of the western tarsier. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler

Extinction not only threatens primates—their parasites are in danger, too

McKenzie Prillaman 1 Dec 2021
Climate change challenges southern right whale survival. Following strong El Niño events a high proportion of females were missing from their breeding sites. After one year of gestation followed by another year of lactation, reproductive females are vulnerable to a reduced availability of krill, and they may potentially fail to fully recover. Photo by Nicolás Lewin

El Niño takes a toll on southern right whales in the Atlantic Ocean

Brian Phan 1 Dec 2021
Image courtesy of Rixster II

Potty-trained cows? Teaching cattle where to urinate could help reduce greenhouse gases

Emily Moskal 30 Nov 2021
Large tiger sharks overwinter in the Bahamas and migrate thousands of kilometers into open ocean in the summer, but they remain in the Atlantic. Photo credit: © Christopher Vaughan-Jones

Geneticists have identified new groups of tiger sharks to protect

Graycen Wheeler 30 Nov 2021

News and Inspiration from Nature's Frontline.

Collage, Jahëna Louisin, Mongabay reporter, and a Vodun ritual
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Ed Singson shows off the seaweed in his bucket
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Photographer Jonathan Bachman was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for capturing a photograph of Ieshia Evans being arrested in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It was Ieshia Evans first protest, and Bachman’s first time covering one. The photo was included in The New York Times’ “The Year in Pictures 2016,” among other honors. jonathan bachman / reuters. Shepard Fairey—a prolific artist and activist who often addresses social and political issues in his work—was invited by the authors of ‘Protest’ to interpret Bachman’s photograph for the book. Image credit to Shepard Fairey. Image Courtesy of Patagonia Books.
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