Rhett Butler

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Founder of Mongabay.

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Daniel Ole Sambu, who helped lions and people coexist, died at age 51

Rhett Ayers Butler 22 Dec 2025
Bee Smith, from her Instagram account.

Bethany “Bee” Smith, researcher who documented a megamouth shark alive, died in a diving accident, aged 24

Rhett Ayers Butler 22 Dec 2025
Conservationists, environmental defenders, and scientists who died in 2025.

Environmental defenders & conservationists who died in 2025

Rhett Ayers Butler 22 Dec 2025
Jeff Foott. Photo by Judith Zimmerman

Jeff Foott, chronicler of ice, rock, and change, has died, aged 80

Rhett Ayers Butler 21 Dec 2025
Misty morning in Borneo. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

Rethinking how we talk about conservation—and why it matters

Rhett Ayers Butler 19 Dec 2025
Gorongosa National Park team member presenting how they visualize wildlife, personnel, and other activity across the landscape on EarthRanger. Photo Credit: Gorongosa National Park.

Tech alone won’t stop poaching, but it’s changing how rangers work

Daniella Garcia Almeida 19 Dec 2025
Background: rainforest in Brunei. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

The value of journalism in the AI era

Rhett Ayers Butler 18 Dec 2025
Survivors inspect clothings they salvaged at a village affected by a flash flood in Batang Toru, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)

Sumatra’s ‘natural’ disaster wasn’t natural: How deforestation turned a rare cyclone catastrophic

Rhett Ayers Butler 15 Dec 2025
Iain Douglas-Hamilton. Image courtesy Save the Elephants.

Iain Douglas-Hamilton, elephant protector, has died at 83

Rhett Ayers Butler 9 Dec 2025
Atlantic blue tang surgeonfish (Acanthurus coeruleus). Photo by Sylfred1977 / Wikimedia Commons

New underwater acoustic camera identifies individual fish sounds, helping track threatened species

Kaia Glickman 9 Dec 2025
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
Bamboo lemur in Madagascar. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

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

News and Inspiration from Nature's Frontline.

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Judith Enck, author of The Problem with Plastic, holding a copy of the book. Image by Jerrick Mitra.
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