Rhett Butler

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Founder of Mongabay.

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1016 stories
Rain over the Amazon. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

The Amazon’s most valuable export isn’t timber — it’s rain

Rhett Ayers Butler 19 Feb 2026
Atoll

Coral bleaching: How warming seas are transforming the world’s reefs

Rhett Ayers Butler 18 Feb 2026
Amazon rainforest in Ecuador. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

Amazon deforestation on pace to be the lowest on record, says Brazil

Rhett Ayers Butler 17 Feb 2026
Satellite image of the eastern part of the Cape York Peninsula in Australia. Courtesy of Earthstar Geographics SIO / Microsoft maps

Scientists can’t agree on where the world’s forests are

Rhett Ayers Butler 17 Feb 2026
Photo by Gary Tabor.

A hundred-year vision: Gary Tabor on the rise of large landscape conservation

Rhett Ayers Butler 16 Feb 2026
Rainforest in Brunei in 2025. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

Forests don’t just store carbon. They keep people alive, scientists say

Rhett Ayers Butler 13 Feb 2026
Aerial view of mangroves, coral reef, palm trees, and forest in Raja Ampat. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

The business case for biodiversity

Rhett Ayers Butler 12 Feb 2026

Snakes on a train: King cobras are hitching rides in India

Rhett Ayers Butler 11 Feb 2026

Why a healthy information ecosystem matters

Rhett Ayers Butler 10 Feb 2026
Gerard C. Boere. Courtesy of AEWA

Gerard C. Boere, conservationist and designer of flyways, died Jan 6, aged 83

Rhett Ayers Butler 9 Feb 2026
Forester kangaroos at The Quoin. Photo credit Doug Gimesy

Financing biodiversity: Lisa Miller on investing in nature

Rhett Ayers Butler 9 Feb 2026
Firefighters battle a wildfire spreading through a forested area near Concepcion, Chile, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Javier Torres, File)

Tipping points and ecosystem collapse are the real geopolitical risk (commentary)

Robert Muggah 9 Feb 2026
Kathy Jefferson Bancroft

Kathy Jefferson Bancroft, guardian of a stolen lake

Rhett Ayers Butler 6 Feb 2026
An AI image, posted on Facebook in October 2025, depicts a tiger in Africa; tigers are native to Asia.

AI-generated wildlife photos make conservation more difficult

Rhett Ayers Butler 6 Feb 2026
A fawn sprints across a road as the Sugar Fire, part of the Beckwourth Complex Fire, burns in Plumas National Forest, Calif., July 8, 2021. Photo credit: AP Photo/Noah Berger

What is lost when environmental coverage is cut

Rhett Ayers Butler 6 Feb 2026
NOAA’s GOES East satellite captured long, parallel bands of clouds called horizontal convective rolls on Feb 1, 2026.

NOAA’s satellites capture extreme cold in striking detail

Rhett Ayers Butler 5 Feb 2026
Coral reef, Tioman Island

Malaysia lost 20% of its coral reefs in three years

Rhett Ayers Butler 5 Feb 2026
Dave Collins holds a Yellow-bellied Slider (Trachemys scripta), a local turtle whose populations are doing just fine in the Eastern US. Photo by Liz Kimbrough for Mongabay.

A last refuge for turtles on the brink

Rhett Ayers Butler 5 Feb 2026
Rainforest in Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler.

Getting forest restoration right

Rhett Ayers Butler 3 Feb 2026

Inside Mongabay with Isabel Esterman and the long arc of environmental reporting

Rhett Ayers Butler 2 Feb 2026
Fire in Humaitá, Amazonas state, Brazil in August 2022. Photo © Christian Braga / Greenpeace

When nature becomes a security risk

Rhett Ayers Butler 2 Feb 2026
Drained, cleared, and burned peat forest in Indonesian Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler

The fair costs for forest rehabilitation in Indonesia (commentary)

Aida Greenbury 2 Feb 2026
Division in April 2023/04/09. Photo credit: New England Aquarium

Division’s final journey

Rhett Ayers Butler 1 Feb 2026
Journalist Christ Belseran with traditional leaders of the Upau Tribe who inhabit the South Seram region, Central Maluku Regency, Maluku. Photo courtesy of titastory.id

Christ Jacob Belseran wins the Oktovianus Pogau Award for courage in journalism

Rhett Ayers Butler 31 Jan 2026
Redwood forest in Big Basin, California. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

On Mongabay’s legacy

Rhett Ayers Butler 30 Jan 2026

Australia’s land-use squeeze

Rhett Ayers Butler 29 Jan 2026
Tapir in Brazil. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

Brazil sets out its strategy for nature

Rhett Ayers Butler 28 Jan 2026

Tree spirits: The unintended ecology of belief

Rhett Ayers Butler 26 Jan 2026

José Zanardini, the priest who tried to reconcile faith and Indigenous autonomy

Rhett Ayers Butler 26 Jan 2026
Kirtida Mekani. Photo courtesy of Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame

Kirtida Mekani, Singapore’s tree lady, has died, aged 66

Rhett Ayers Butler 23 Jan 2026
An Indigenous Tikuna man in the Amazon Rainforest in Colombia. Some researchers oppose the idea that human cultures would have been limited and determined by the environment, and that supports the notion that human cultures have modified the environment as desired. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

What it will take to protect the Amazon, according to Virgilio Viana

Rhett Ayers Butler 22 Jan 2026
Southern right whales in South Africa. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler

Making 60% of the ocean manageable (Commentary)

Rhett Ayers Butler 22 Jan 2026

News and Inspiration from Nature's Frontline.

Yo Yaj at Songkhla Lake, Thailand
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Mona Khalil in 2002 at in Tyre. Photo by Jihad Seqlawi/AFP/Getty Images
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