Rhett Butler

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Founder of Mongabay.

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716 stories
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
Costa Rica rainforest

Conservation pays and everyone’s benefitting from it (commentary)

Diego Vincenzi 15 Jul 2024
Header image: Generated image suggestive of a bleak and burned-out patch of Amazon rainforest

“Game over” for the Amazon forest and global climate if Trump wins? (commentary)

Philip M. Fearnside 11 Jul 2024

Climate surprises: Amazonia and the lessons of Brazil’s catastrophic flood in Rio Grande do Sul (commentary)

Philip M. Fearnside, Rosimeire Araújo Silva 4 Jul 2024
Mongabay logo

Mongabay at 25: A Reflection on the Journey and Future

Rhett Ayers Butler 24 Jun 2024
Wendy Schmidt explores Agog’s website in webXR as Amy Seidenwurm, chief of programs and strategy for Agog, looks on. Credit: Ben Gibbs / Agog

Using immersive media to strengthen support for the environment: An interview with Wendy Schmidt

Rhett Ayers Butler 17 Jun 2024
A section of BR-316 in 2013.

Brazil’s BR-319 Highway: The latest maneuver to obtain approval for an environmental disaster (commentary)

Philip M. Fearnside 17 Jun 2024
River in the Amazon rainforest. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler

Deforestation in Earth’s largest rainforest continues to plummet despite a rise in fires

Rhett Ayers Butler 15 Jun 2024
Recent deforestation for oil palm in the Amazon rainforest

Governments are ramping up actions to fight environmental crime across the Amazon, but is it working? (commentary)

Robert Muggah 27 May 2024
Rainbow over the Amazon rainforest. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

Despite drought, Amazon deforestation alerts hit five-year low

Mongabay.com 10 May 2024
Deforestation in the Amazon in 2022. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler / Mongabay

Deforestation alerts in the Brazilian Amazon fall to a 5-year low

Mongabay.com 18 Apr 2024
AI generated image of a satellite over South America

New technologies to map environmental crime in the Amazon Basin (commentary)

Robert Muggah and Peter Smith 12 Apr 2024
jane goodall at 90

Jane Goodall at 90: On fame, hope, and empathy

Rhett Ayers Butler 3 Apr 2024
Planet satellite image of the Macucuaú River, Roraima in February 2023 (left) and February 2024 (right). Courtesy of Planet.

Fires surge in the Amazon, but deforestation continues to fall

Mongabay.com 17 Mar 2024
Flying a drone in New Guinea. Photo by Rhett A. Butler

Mongabay Data Studio: Revealing nature’s hidden stories through data (commentary)

Rhett Ayers Butler 8 Mar 2024
Artistic rendering of a forest shaped like a brain. AI-generated.

To reverse deforestation and protect biodiversity, build a bioeconomy in the Amazon (commentary)

Robert Muggah 23 Feb 2024
Generated image showing a road through a deforested landscape.

Brazil’s BR-319 highway: The danger reaches a critical moment (commentary)

Philip M. Fearnside 17 Feb 2024

Brazil’s 2024-2027 “Transversal Environmental Agenda”: The elephants in the room (commentary)

Philip M. Fearnside 4 Feb 2024
Fire and deforestation in the Amacro region (the states of Amazonas, Acre and Rondônia) in the Brazilian Amazon in late August 2022. Photo © Nilmar Lage / Greenpeace

Amazonia in flames: Unlearned lessons from the 2023 Manaus smoke crisis (commentary)

Lucas Ferrante, Philip M. Fearnside 17 Jan 2024
Verreaux's sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi) in a dry forest in Madagascar. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler

Beyond the myths: Anthropologist Alison Richard on Madagascar’s environmental realities and future

Rhett Ayers Butler 3 Jan 2024

News and Inspiration from Nature's Frontline.

Top tools to protect rainforests | Against All Odds
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Mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) in Virunga National Park.
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A screenshot of Carlos Zorrilla in 2023, explaining history of mining exploration in Ecuador. Footage by Romi Castagnino for Mongabay.
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