Articles by Rhett Butler

Over the course of the holiday season, Americans asked themselves why many of their favorite consumer items became difficult to obtain, from board games to apparel to bicycles. Amid pandemic…

Edward O. Wilson, a prominent biologist and prolific author who help raise global awareness and understanding about biodiversity and conservation, has died. E.O. Wilson, as he was often known, died…

Thomas E. Lovejoy III, a prominent and influential conservation biologist who helped catalyze a global movement to save the Amazon rainforest and served as an advisor to a wide range…

I have not traveled anywhere these past 2 years. I couldn’t travel even if I wanted to since Australia, where I live, closed its borders in March 2020 in a…

As of July 2021, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rose 22% over the previous year. High levels of deforestation across the entire Amazon region are bringing the rainforest to a…

Earlier this week climate activists Kevin J. Patel and Julia Jackson published an op-ed in Newsweek that effectively accused the Biden Administration of betraying their climate commitment at last month's…

Research published in recent years has shown that Indigenous territories have experienced substantially lower rates of forest loss than non-Indigenous lands. Given that Indigenous territories account for at least 36%…

In 1986 a 24-year-old from Ohio named Daniel Katz set out to save tropical rainforests by creating a way for consumers to directly support more eco-conscious approaches to producing products…

In the 1970s, coral reefs in the Western Indian Ocean were relatively untouched by people. Today, these same reefs are at a tipping point with more than 69 million people…

A few years ago, alone on the top of a mountain in Zion National Park, in Utah, USA, I had an almost mystical experience that immediately transported me to the…

Extinction threatens nearly half of all primate species, largely due to human activities. But alongside them, a hidden world of biodiversity also could disappear: parasites. Using computer modeling, researchers discovered…

Southern right whales, one of the most historically hunted whales globally, have recovered nicely since the whaling era. But a new analysis has shown that El Niño events, which warm…

Cows aren’t too bullheaded or dumb to learn new bathroom habits. Researchers showed this by toilet-training a small group of calves in a toilet they designed and dubbed the MooLoo.…

Tiger sharks sometimes swim thousands of kilometers—far enough to move among oceans. Their flexible diets and adaptable behaviors set them up to be successful jet-setters, zipping around the world and…

From above, the Lhaviyani atoll in the Maldives forms a rough oval, encircling a turquoise stretch of the Indian Ocean speckled with islands. But on the ground, populations of insects,…

Female hummingbirds sometimes look like the brightly colored males of their species. Researchers have long pondered the reason for this. Now, a study of hummingbirds in Panama suggests that sporting…

The jaguar population in Mexico increased by about 800 animals from 2010 to 2018, according to the first two censuses of the elusive carnivores ever conducted in the country. The…

The Glasgow conference saw a plethora of announcements on forests. The most high-profile of these was the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, signed by 133 world leaders,…

Deforestation in Earth's largest rainforest surged 22% to the highest level since 2006, according to official data released today by the Brazilian government. Preliminary analysis of satellite data by Brazil's…

For 20 years, researchers stared at the dark side of the moon to measure its faint but visible “earthshine,” a glow created by sunlight reflecting off Earth and onto the…

Bears, wolves, and other carnivores in Michigan adjust their behavior to avoid active roadways, researchers reported recently in the journal Global Ecology and Conservation. The study is part of the…

Despite living in a concrete jungle, London’s urban bees fly shorter distances to feast on nectar-rich flowers than their neighbors in the countryside—a counterintuitive discovery explained by the many lush…

As the U.N. climate conference drew toward a close Friday, Brazil reported the highest level of deforestation for any October dating back to 2007. According to the monthly deforestation tracking…

Editor’s note: Tim Killeen provides an update on the state of the Amazon in his new book “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon Wilderness – Success and Failure in the Fight…

On Tuesday, November 2, 2021, 127 countries signed the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, pledging to “halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation” by 2030. The…

A court in Peru has formally dismissed a defamation case filed by an agribusiness company against Mongabay Latam journalist Yvette Sierra Praeli. On Monday, the Fourth Criminal Chamber of Lima…

[Part II - What countries are leaders in reducing deforestation?] On November 2, 2021 at the 26th U.N. Climate Change Conference (#COP26), 127 countries signed the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on…

Between the global pandemic, the accelerating impacts of climate change and environmental degradation, and the conservation sector's reckoning with its colonial past, 2020 and 2021 have been a tumultuous time…

Hurricane Ida’s warpath is the latest in a litany of natural disasters, estimated to have cost the world $210 billion in damage in 2020, that is shining a spotlight on climate change.…

For at least the past 20 years, there has been regular talk about the need to break down silos in conservation. The argument is straightforward: to be successful, the field…